In the desert south of Tunisia, a group of entrepreneurs in renewable energy, NUR Energy Ltd, and Tunisian Top Oilfield Services created what may be the most ambitious solar renewable energy project to date.

With the support of the Foundation Desertec (Desertec.com) NUR Energy launched the TuNur to export solar energy from North Africa to Europe, linking Tunisia to Italy via a line of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC), and in the Italian power grid to provide 2000 MW of electricity constantly. When completed, TuNur will be the most extensive solar energy project in the world. And with the threatening reality of climate change, limited supplies of traditional energy sources and examples of recent nuclear and oil disasters, renewable energy is no longer an idealistic choice but a necessity. As a human species, we cannot afford not to rush into such projects.

What is really unique about this project is that it is a true South-North cooperation which highlights not only the socio-economic benefits that such an association can bring (TuNur expected that the project will create about 20 000 jobs more than welcome in Tunisia), but also takes into account the environmental impact, which led to the choice of the technology (solar thermal power plants) and the overall design of the project. And to not accelerate the process of desertification, TuNur use very little water in a closed system and recycle the steam produced by this process using mirrors reflecting sunlight to a storage tower, turning the Sahara into a resource that can both lead the local economy and meet the growing demand for low carbon electricity.

Unlike other ambitious projects, where idealism, high costs and poor timing clashed with the harsh reality of pipeline construction giant solar, the project of NUR TuNur Energy has come.

Basma – International Green Energy Correspondent – 02/02/2012

Back in 2010 Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmon, proclaimed that by 2025 all of Scotland would be powered by 100% renewable energy, with an interim target of 31% by 2011. In the past four years the Scottish Government approved 42 renewable energy projects, and in 2009 27.4% of electricity demand came from renewables. Scotland was well on its way to achieving their ambitious targets, despite the doubts from sceptics. 2011 has been and gone and Scotland easily exceeded the goal of 31% causing Minister Salmon to return with a new target; 100% by 2020.

“Because the pace of development has been so rapid, with our 2011 target already exceeded, we can now commit to generating the equivalent of 100% of Scotland’s own electricity demand from renewable resources by 2020. By then we intend to be generating twice as much electricity as Scotland needs — just over half of it from renewables, and just under half from other conventional sources. We will be exporting as much electricity as we consume. So we will continue to work with industry and Governments at local, UK and European level to build on what we have achieved. We will now move still further and faster to secure our place as the green energy powerhouse of the continent of Europe.”

Currently Scotland boasts 7GW of renewable energy projects, mostly in offshore wind farms, but also in wave and tidal power. In fact they already have an estimated quarter of Europe’s offshore wind and tidal energy resource and a tenth of its potential wave capacity. But in order to achieve 100% clean energy by 2020 a lot of investment is needed. The Department for Energy and Climate Change recently released figures showing that the renewable energy sector received more than £750 million last year, and another £46 billion is to be invested in the construction of 17GW of power in the future. It is all part of the grand plan to become Europe’s renewable energy leader.

Whilst renewable energy is the sector, the Scots are focussing their efforts on offshore wind farms. This will be hugely helped by the recently declared partnership with Masdar, the Abu Dhabi clean energy company. The pooled resources of both institutions will be used to research and advance clean technology development. Salmond acknowledged that “the costs of offshore wind will have to be reduced by 20% to be competitive,” as will the costs of efficiently transporting electricity over long distances. But the aim is clear; the commercialisation of offshore wind farms. It is the big prize, and will give Scotland a strong foothold in one of the most promising industries of the future; which could reportedly be worth $30 billion. Needless to say, Scotland’s hopes are as high as their ambitions.

By. James Burgess of Oilprice.com

via Scotland Well on the Way to Achieving 100% Renewable Energy by 2020.

More than 20 000 jobs and an investment of over U.S. $ 3 billion, is the benefit to come from the solar energy project as announced the DACC Associates LLC MAMSKA Guinea-LTD and the utility of Guinea (EDG) announced on Tuesday, January 24 in Conakry.

The solar power project of 1000 MW is 100% funded by the U.S. partner DACC. In its activities, it will be assisted by international financial companies involved in the sector of renewable energy, said the president of Guinea Mamaska. This project, adds Mamady Kaba Sinkoun, will produce energy to sell to the EDG. After reaching the objectives of the project on an area of ​​about 6 to 7 years, plants and materials will return to the Guinean government.

However, the partner has set up a factory manufacturing solar panels with international standards to meet the demands at the country and export to the nearby regions. An ambition of size that is! In the future, we can see with how Guinea will become, if this project to be realized, the first African country to have a manufacturing facility on its soil.

In the first instance, or the pilot phase, the project wants to put in the Boke region a production of 50 MWC that will be distributed as follows: Boke 5 MWp with an annual production of 43,200 MWh, the village of Kamsar 5 MWp for annual production of 43,200 MWh and the mines 40 MWp for an annual production of 345,000 MWh.

Second, Mamska-DACC plans to install solar photovoltaic for all the mines in Guinea. Then, build solar power plants in the prefectures and Rural Communities Development (CRD). It should also notice that the power to be installed in each prefecture will vary between 3 MWp to 5 MWp, depending on the size of the region concerned and the needs of application.

The work on this project will soon begin to allow Guinea to have electricity 24/24 when we know that the electric current service, even in Conakry, remains to be desired.

Basma- International Green Energy News Correspondent – 25/01/2012.

Many European governments have recently faced unprecedented debt problems and low growth forecasts. Due to the increasing need to implement strict austerity measures, policy makers are willing to reassess the various expenses, including grant programs. If alternative energy sources are expected to bring many long-term benefits, a question arises in these turbulent times: the cost of subsidies for these technologies is it still affordable?

 

Subsidies For Renewable Energy Is Relatively Low

 

Before drawing any conclusions, let’s examine in detail the amounts allocated. According to the International Energy Agency, subsidies for renewable energy in the world amounted to 66 billion USD in 2010. A modest sum compared to 409 billion USD  allocated to fossil fuels. Compared to the total GDP of the euro area, the grants mentioned are a proportion of less than 0.4%. Given these figures, it is likely that cost-cutting measures are more effective in absolute terms in other areas.

 

Prices For Solar And Wind Power Rapidly Receding…

Decline in the spot price of polysilicon (USD / kg)

 

In addition, prices of technologies to exploit renewable energy sources are rapidly receding. The most striking example is that of photovoltaic panels, whose prices have fallen 75% since 2008. According to EnergyTrend and PVinsights, the spot price of crystalline silicon solar cells is now at the order of $ 1/W.

This decrease is due to an imbalance between demand (which remains weak) and global production capacity, which are rising. Currently, the panel manufacturers are in fierce competition, especially with Chinese companies that benefit from more favorable cost structures and numerous funding opportunities. Italy, the UK and, more recently, Germany have reduced their subsidies for solar power to reflect the changes in prices and avoid a disproportionate return on investment.

Wind energy depends much less on public subsidies to the extent that it is a much more affordable in term of costs. Today, the wind industry is suffering mainly from financial difficulties and faced with overcapacity resulting in a rapid decline in the price of the facilities.

…While Fossil Fuel Prices Increase

 

Cost of electricity: the competitiveness of renewable energy increases

 

The prices of electricity from fossil fuels, however, are rising. Since late 2010, coal centrals have witnessed the combustion materials’ prices increase significantly due to long-term constraints in terms of the offer. Consequently, the cost of electricity (leveled cost of Electricity, LCOE) of new power plants is now estimated at over $ 75 U/MWh, according to New Energy Finance. This resulted in increased costs by 36% over the past two years, against a decline of nearly 30% for solar. Electricity from renewable sources is becoming more competitive comparing to fossil fuel. Wind power already competes with coal and gas.

The Solar And Wind Less Dependent On Subsidies

 

When solar energy reaches the “grid parity”, which means that when its price will be equal to or lower than those of conventional electricity out subsidies, the industry should show a strong and sustainable growth. Until then and during the transition period, the stock market exposure to renewable energy will likely have a high level of volatility. The new decisions on grants in several markets should significantly influence the performance of green values.

 

Favorable Prospects For Long-Term, But A Strong Short-Term Volatility

 

The current market situation has important implications for investors. The transition period will likely attract investment opportunities provided to choose the winners of the crisis. Technology firms protected by high technologies and benefiting from a greater power to impose their prices, are expected to overcome the current turmoil and win market share over time.

 

Basma Jalloul – International Green Energy Correspondent – 19/01/2012

The French oil company Total will consolidate its activities in solar energy by increasing in its U.S. subsidiaryin SunPower to 66%, to whom it will sell a French subsidiary, Tenesol.

In a statement on Friday, the solar panel manufacturer SunPower indicates that Total will raise its capital from 60 to 66% in exchange for assignment, for 165.4 million dollars, a company that Total 100% controls, Tenesol.

“SunPower has signed an agreement to acquire Tenesol SA, a global provider of solar energy which headquartered is in La Tour-de-Salvagny” (Rhône, east-central France), announced the U.S. company.

Under the terms of the agreement, SunPower will pay Total $ 165.4 million in cash, and the French energy giant will get in exchange a 18.6 million valued shares from SunPower (8.80 dollars per share) , “a 50% premium over the closing price of Sunpower” Thursday.

“After the sale of Tenesol, Total will own approximately 66% of the shares of SunPower,” they said.

Tenesol has operations in 18 countries and solar plants in France and South Africa.

SunPower, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California (Western U.S.), has operations in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia.

“Combining the activities of Tenesol and Sunpower is a step forward in Total’s strategy of becoming a global player in the promising area of ​​solar energy,” said the president of gas and solar power of the French group, Philippe Boisseau .

Total has taken control of SunPower this summer thanks to a friendly takeover bid of $ 1.38 billion, showing an intention to create a “world leader in solar energy” and the project to accelerate its investment in this area.

“We said that SunPower would be our arm in the sun,” added a spokesman for Total contacted by AFP, adding that “both companies are very complementary,” and that the approximation obeys a “real logical raphical “.

Basma – Green Energy WA News Correspondent – 16/01/2012

SolarFocus will introduce SolarKindle, billed as “the world’s first solar powered e-reader cover” at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) which gets underway on Monday.

The cover will have a built-in solar panel with a dual-charging (USB and solar) reserve battery. The company said that there is “a guarentee of three-months of unplugged Kindle use” under normal sunlight environment.

There is also an built-in LED reading lamp that will last 50 hours without using the Kindle’s main battery, according to the company. The company said that an hour of direct sunlight can provide up to three days of reading time.

Being in the business of solar energy, we see a lot of new and exciting products long before they hit the store shelves. We attend a lot of tradeshows and industry conferences, and it never ceases to amaze me how passionate people are about their newly-developed applications. While it is nowhere near the end of the year, we felt we would share some of these amazing products with you, our loyal readers.

One of the most interesting products we have seen this year comes out of a university in UK. It is being called the “Sun Trap”, and it is garnering a lot of excitement in the world press. It is not exactly a revolutionary idea, but it certainly is an innovative use of existing technology. It is a handbag designed using photovoltaic material as an exterior, while the interior of the purse is lined with electroluminescent material. When the bag is opened, the interior lights up! It is powered by a small battery that is continually charged by the sun throughout the day. No more searching for your keys in the night!

Another fine product that we see as being incredibly practical is the solar panel for notebook computers. This an incredibly handy tool for those people who spend a lot of time outdoors. We have all had situations when we are far from an outlet and the laptop dies. Isn’t that the worst? Well, this product has the potential to solve that problem…so long as a light source is available. I plan on taking mine on my next camping trip!

There are also some awesome new products designed for use in your yard or garden. I am particularly keen on some of the great garden lighting systems that have recently been released. These are basically small lights that are used to illuminate garden paths and walkways. They are charged throughout the day by the sun, and they stay lit well throughout the night. There are also new solar powered rodent repellers that are an excellent alternative to using chemicals or traps to keep rodents out of your garden.

These are just a few of the exciting products that have seen the light of day. Engineers and inventors around the world are working to develop some wonderful new products. It is very refreshing to see that people are devoting time and effort into developing sustainable energy applications. It is only a matter of time before all energy products are designed with the interests of sustainability in mind.

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A ‘Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure’ could be inspired by – and dramatically extend – the concept of cross-border grids elsewhere, most notably in Europe and North Africa. Examining infrastructure projects now underway in Asia, how might these organically develop into a ‘Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure’ by 2050?

There has been increasing chatter about so-called “supergrids”, which could join up diverse regions in the power generation market, and help with integrating an increasing amount of renewable energy into the energy system. And such concepts, while until recently very much in the “visionary” category, continue to gain political traction.

The European Commission for example, recently announced proposals for regulation that could aid the development of a Supergrid: Guidelines For Trans-European Energy Infrastructure could be a major step forward in accelerating the building of such much-needed new electricity infrastructure schemes.

The Desertec Initiative – whose philosophy involves developing renewable energy resources in North Africa and ultimately exporting power back to Europe – continues to crystallise its ideas. As we go to press in fact, reports suggest that the location of Desertec’s inaugural solar thermal project could be the desert city of Ouarzazate, Morocco, where parabolic mirrors will cover an area of 12 km^₂.

But what about Asia?

And it is not just Europe where such visionary ideas gradually move out of the realms of fantasy. Over the next four decades, bundled natural gas pipelines, high-capacity electricity cables and fibre optic cables could transform Asia, stretching from Australia’s Southern Ocean to China’s northern province of Mongolia.
Were it ever to be implemented, this visionary infrastructure could serve an energy and data market of two billion people.

The vision – to serve a growing powerhouse

A multilateral, open access, common-carrier energy transmission system in Asia offers greater long-term advantages than ad hoc, bilateral energy transmission arrangements, which discourage new market players and result in rigid, brittle markets.

This is made all the more relevant because in the coming years, Asia will emerge as the world’s largest regional economy. To get from here to there, it needs tens of trillions of dollars of infrastructure. This necessary infrastructure includes road, rail, aviation, telecommunications, not to mention energy generation and transmission capacity. And much of this will be new, not replacement, infrastructure.

A prime example of the current status quo in the energy market is Japan. Japan’s lack of national and international energy network interconnections left the country struggling to meet its domestic power needs following the March 2011 earthquake.

Had an internationally-interconnected energy network been in place, Japan could have imported marginal power supplies from spare electricity in China or South Korea. These could have helped offset the shortfall caused by Japan’s loss of domestic nuclear energy generating capacity.

Gas and renewables in partnership

To illustrate the logic behind a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure, we begin from the assumption that Asia (and the world) needs to switch to low emission energy sources between now and 2050.

The most practical way to do this is to aggressively replace ageing, dirty, coal-fired base-load power plants between now and 2030 with cleaner-burning natural gas plants.

This will result in near-term greenhouse gas emission reductions, while ensuring ongoing grid stability. During this period, intermittent renewable energy sources will expand rapidly, but off a small base.

By 2030, renewable energy will have grown to the point where it becomes a significant – if not the dominant – carbon-adjusted energy source. At this point, natural gas capacity could be shifted away from providing baseload power, and towards providing peaking power and load-balancing – to a grid dominated by low-emission renewables.

And experts believe this is rational.

Over the short term, natural gas’ cleanliness compared to coal makes it attractive for meeting short-term greenhouse gas reduction needs. Over the long-term, gas’ rapid response qualities make it attractive for ensuring grid stability.

Over the long term, natural gas’ rapid-response qualities are undervalued by serving baseload power markets. Shifting this energy source to load-balancing, therefore, is merely common sense economics.

Meanwhile the benefits to energy markets are clear. Near-term greenhouse gas emission can be reduced through replacing coal, while grid stability can be enhanced during the transition to renewable energy. New investment in natural gas plant and equipment capacity can serve baseload power markets now, and premium-price load-balancing markets later. Meanwhile, renewable energy gets the breathing space it needs as an industry to grow.

Asia has an abundance of both natural gas and low-emission energy it can develop. Many of these resources are located in the same places. That lowers the costs of developing them, not to mention transporting the energy to power-hungry cities.

Of all of Asia’s renewable resources, solar energy is the biggest. China’s Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang are baked in strong sunlight. Virtually all of Australia’s interior has strong solar resources.

China and Australia also have lots of wind. China’s onshore wind resources are in its north. Its offshore wind resources are in the East China Sea. Australia’s onshore wind resources are in its southern regions. Its offshore resources are in the Great Southern Ocean.

Therefore, to apply a simple, two-country model: China and Australia could be connected by high-capacity, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power lines. These would be similar to those envisaged for carrying solar electricity from North Africa to Europe.

However, there are differences, chief among them being the longer distances involved in Asia, compared to Europe/North Africa. But to counter that the size of Asia’s energy market is much larger, faster growing and far less burdened by legacy infrastructure than that of Europe and North Africa. What’s more, Asia has a much broader array of low-emission energy sources than anything available in Europe and North Africa.

In coming years, Asia’s economic growth rate is similarly expected to be much higher and faster than Europe’s. This will – over time – reduce the overall investment burden required for the infrastructure in the Asian region, as a percentage of the aggregate Asian economy as a whole.

Since the investment will raise energy marketplace efficiency, the benefits will be compounded. And given that Asia requires huge infrastructure investment anyway, the key figure to examine is the additional amount an integrated system would cost, compared to “business as usual” investment.

The technical case

Potentially there could be compelling technical benefits to an Asian Supergrid. To take just one, frictionless interconnection across a large geographic area (like Asia) can enable uncorrelated intermittencies of geographically-dispersed renewable energy sources to partially or wholly cancel each other out. This can increase system stability.

In addition, integrated markets can improve aggregate investment price signals by reducing spurious “noise”. This will speed the discovery of the lowest-price, carbon-adjusted power sources.

This matters because, as above, Asia has a broad suite of low emission energy sources it can develop. These include geothermal from Australia’s interior; biomass from tropical Queensland, Southeast Asia and coastal China. And for their part, wave; tidal; and even ocean thermal energy from Australia and the Indonesian archipelago also hold great promise.

But for all these energy sources to be developed, assured access to market is needed. This access has other benefits too. One of which will be a reduction in the need for expensive but largely idle capacity to be built to handle grid demand fluctuations, peak power needs, and unexpected outages in national markets. Unused capacity in one market can be sold to other markets across-borders.

Natural gas in Asia

In the coming years, huge new gas fields are slated for development in the East China Sea; the South China Sea; Indonesia’s offshore waters; the Timor Sea; Papua-New Guinea; and in Australia’s Northwest Shelf and Queensland.

Present plans are for most of this gas to be developed and shipped to China, Japan and South Korea (the region’s big consumers) in the form of highly-compressed Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). The problem is that LNG has questionable environmental credentials, due to huge internal energy needs. These emit the very greenhouse gases the underlying natural gas is supposed to reduce.

This begs the question: what are the alternatives? One answer could be pipelines. However, lengthy pipelines are expensive. Examined on narrow metrics, they look more costly than LNG.

But this leaves several things out. The most important is that natural gas pipelines create networks. By contrast, LNG can only transport compressed natural gas between two fixed points via a single purpose, single-generation technology. In other words, LNG isn’t readily adaptable to future uses. Pipelines can be. And these have an economic value that needs to be further evaluated.

If high-voltage, high-capacity power lines were built between Australia and China to create a pan-Asian electricity network, natural gas pipelines could be laid alongside. This would lower the investment costs of both pieces of infrastructure, because labour and other logistics costs could be shared.

Also, gas pipelines are flexible. They can carry fuels apart from natural gas. Properly constructed, pipelines can carry hydrogen, CO₂and biofuels.

These are also strong qualitative arguments in favour of bundling a natural gas and electricity infrastructure in order to reap intrinsic network flexibilities. This is particularly so given that fibre optic cables can be tossed in at virtually no extra cost.

‘Bundled’ infrastructure – gas pipelines, high voltage power lines and fibre optic cables – could offer a “1+1=3” outcome for Asia.

A combined electricity, natural gas and communications network would enhance ‘fuel switching’ between electricity and natural gas.

For example, Chinese electricity import demand could be dynamically satisfied through imports of (among others) electricity from:

• Solar or wind energy generated elsewhere in Asia;
• Gas-powered electricity from spare capacity elsewhere in Asia;
• Imports of the natural gas itself, for combustion in a China gas plant.

The flexible network could allow this to occur, particularly if the fibre optic cables enable the rapid transmission of demand and supply information needed to balance markets in real time.

Conclusion – a grand vision

In summary, a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure could usher in an Asian era of ‘cloud energy.’ This analogy to telecommunications is apt. In the past 20 years, the telecoms industry has been turned upside down by dramatic reforms. These have huge efficiencies. The enabler was the common-carrier Internet.

There’s now a strong argument that the hidebound energy industry should follow in the footsteps of the telecommunications industry.

And that means building a multilateral; common-carrier; open access network – allowing the marketplace to lead the way.

The timing is fortuitous. Asia needs huge amounts of greenfield infrastructure in the coming years, which can be designed largely free of legacy replacement considerations.

With imaginative thinking, a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create flexibly-designed infrastructure that could last well into the 22nd Century.

NB: the issues in the above article are explored in a research paper by Stewart Taggart, entitled Solar and Wind in Asia Connected by a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure – recently published by the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

Energy infrastructure

Expectations cause a lot of problems — without expectations, we couldn’t be disappointed. However, it’s impractical not to have any expectations. So, the important thing is really just not to tie your happiness to your expectations too much. Work hard, be good, but also be flexible when it comes to the results. So, with that said, here are some expectations for solar energy in 2012 — hopefully, the good ones will come true (and you know that we’ll be doing what we can to help them along), but expectations are expectations, and only that.

1. Solar costs will continue to drop. It’s expected that solar costs haven’t hit their lowest point yet and that increasing deployment combined with technological improvements will keep the prices falling in 2012. That means solar hitting grid parity in even more places, even without subsidies that include their tremendous health and environmental savings.

2. Solar companies will merge, collapse, and be bought out. Competition is increasing in the solar industry. That doesn’t mean the industry is failing, as some would like to contend, but that it is maturing. The result, however, is that many companies will have to go. I think 2012 will be a year full of solar mergers, buy-outs, and even collapses. (We’ll be getting ready for the wonderful misinformation campaigns coming out of certain industries, media outlets, and political campaigns as that happens.)

3. Solar will continue to boom on rooftops and elsewhere in the U.S. Solar leasing, group purchasing and discount options, and good old solar incentives will continue to put record amounts of solar power on people’s homes and businesses in 2012. Additionally, huge utility-scale solar projects will keep moving forward and breaking new ground. Dropping solar costs, innovative technologies, and innovative business models make the clean energy option increasingly attractive, in numerous shapes and forms.

4. Attacks on the solar industry will get stronger. With solar’s increasing importance and growth, those in the fossil fuel industry or threatened by it will likely increase their attacks on the budding industry, I presume. Solyndra was just the start. How they will do this when solar remains one of the most popular things in the country (with about 95% of Americans in favor of government support for it and increasing deployment) remains to be seen.

5. More feed-in tariffs will drive fast installation of rooftop solar. In North America and around the world, I think we’ll see more governments moving forward with feed-in tariff policies to support solar. Why? Well, simply put, it’s been the most effective policy for driving solar power installation around the world.

6. PACE comeback. I think we’re finally going to see property-assessed clean energy (PACE) financing come back in the U.S. PACE financing was having tremendous success (with no harm to anyone) before Fannie and Freddie Mac inadvertently shut it down. It’s got a strong following of supporters and is a common-sense financing option that has no reason to be sitting on the sidelines.

7. China (& India?) to knock our socks off. China’s solar

ambitions have increased dramatically in the last year (more than once). It doesn’t take China long to act and I think we’re going to see tremendous implementation in 2012. India’s future doesn’t seem as certain, but it hastremendous solar power goals as well, solar is now cheaper than diesel there, and many are projecting that it will become a big solar player soon, perhaps in 2012.

“Global solar photovoltaic (PV) module shipments are forecast to grow from an estimated 22.7 GW in 2011 to 43.8 GW in 2015 according to IDC Energy Insights’ Worldwide Quarterly Photovoltaic Module Tracker,” IDC Energy Insights reports. “At the same time that module prices are declining at a record-setting pace, large markets like China and India have doubled down on future solar plans and adopted extremely aggressive targets.”

“According to IDC Energy Insights most recent PV Module forecast, Asia/Pacific (including Japan) will grow from 22.9% of global module shipments in 2011 to 49.3% in 2015. Europe, which is expected to receive 66.4% of PV shipments in 2011, will decline to just 38.7% in 2015 (see chart below).”

Any other thoughts on what 2012 will bring? I did leave some notable topics out, as I’m not sure what to expect from them. Those include the solar trade dispute between U.S. & German solar companies and China, and solar policies in the UK and other European countries.

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1547u)