2014 most attractive emerging solar market are south africa, thailand, turkey, mexico

IHS: South Africa most attractive emerging solar market
South Africa has been rated the most attractive emerging PV market in a quarterly report for global information company, IHS.

South Africa scored 66 out of 100 when analysed for macroeconomic climate, market size potential, profitability and pipeline maturity, alongside other emerging markets.

South Africa topped the chart thanks to the country’s solar goal for 8.4GW by 2030 and the favourable tender process of its national renewable energy programme, which has attracted signficant solar investment.

“South Africa has consolidated its position as a growth market for PV by cultivating a policy environment stable enough to attract financing from commercial banks,” said Josefin Berg, senior PV analyst at IHS.

Ranked second by the IHS is Thailand with a score of 49; however IHS predicts a slide in the tables soon for Thailand due to changes to its investor attracting feed-in-tariff - which pays premiums to solar power producers – that will now be replaced with just a rooftop FiT.

Turkey is ranked third with a score of 45, although IHS predicts Turkey’s placement is at risk from its low solar pipeline. Turkey currently has a very low base of installed solar projects with just 3MW connected, and 150MW proposed at the start of 2013.

Currently project proposals greater than 1MW are awaiting 600MW of tenders.

For projects 1MW and under however, an increased feed-in tariff and streamlined application processes have cleared the path for Turkey to make serious progress towards its 3GW solar target for 2023.

The accompanying increase in energy demand and rapid rise of electricity, as well as Turkey’s estimated potential for 1GW of solar prices has provided Turkey with its high rank, the IHS report has said. “Permitting and grid connection contracts remain the main bottleneck in 2014,” Berg said.

Romania was fourth in the ranks scoring 43, and Mexico fifth with 42.

The IHS findings are for near and mid-term attractiveness, changing every quarter in accordance with policies and development.

From http://www.pv-tech.org/mobile/news/ihs_south_africa_rated_most_attractive_emerging_market

SEDA Malaysia Open Day (Central Region) for FiAH Solar FiT Holder

SEDA Malaysia Open Day (Central Region)

Venue : Berjaya Times Square Hotel , Kuala Lumpur Date : 20 October 2013

SEDA Malaysia Meets Successful Applicants of Solar Photovoltaic (PV) for Individuals from the Central Region

Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia (SEDA Malaysia) today holds a dialogue with 350 Feed-in Approval Holders (FiAHs) from the central region to update them on the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) mechanism and its new requirements as well as provide a platform to address any concerns to FiT and other related matters.

Since the implementation of FiT, SEDA Malaysia have approved a total of 2,628 applications with a total installed capacity of 484.03MW and 655 projects have commenced operation with a total installed capacity of 118.19MW. It has been observed that Solar PV has also shown a steady growth in Malaysia. Until 30th September 2013, Solar PV shown the highest percentage for approved applications; 39.72% or 192.26MW of installed capacity compared to bio mass with 152.49 MW or 31.5%; while small hydro and biogas made up the balance of 23.77% (115.05MW) and  5.01% ( 24.23MW) respectively.

According to YBhg Datin Badriyah Ab. Malek, CEO of SEDA Malaysia, since the launched of the Solar Home Rooftop Programme on 24th September 2012, more individuals have participated in the FiT programme. To date SEDA Malaysia has approved 2,279 applications for the individuals with a total capacity of 24.43MW of which 592 applications with an installed capacity of 8.98MW have commenced operation. “We released 1,500 kW of solar PV quota individuals on September 18 2013 and the response received was overwhelming. The quota was all gone within an hour” said Datin Badriyah. SEDA Malaysia will not release any more solar PV quota for this year because of the need to ensure all approved applicants can achieve commercial operation before December 31, 2013. This is important as the consequence of such failure implied a penalty of degression imposed on current FiT rates secured by the FiAHs. The degression rate imposed on individuals is 8% whilst for non-individuals, it is 20%.

Datin Badriyah also reiterated the importance of the public’s contribution to the Renewable Energy (RE) Fund which is an important step taken by the Government to support the FiT programme. Currently electricity consumers contribute 1% of their monthly electricity bill to the RE Fund; however this does not include those domestic consumers whose consumption of electricity is less than 300kWh (equivalent to RM77) per month. Malaysians need to embrace this step in all seriousness because the RE Fund is vital to ensure the sustainable growth of the renewable energy which has been identified as the alternative source of energy for the country in our effort to reduce the country’s over reliance on fossil fuel.

More photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/72192164@N08/sets/72157636861573196/

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