Price pressures for solar installations ‘slightly dampen’ expansion: report

Solar PV capacity growth dominated the non-hydropower renewables sector. 

Price pressures for solar installations only “slightly dampened” solar energy’s expansion, a report found. 

In 2022, BMI Country Risk & Industry Research estimated that the global additions of solar photovoltaic capacity reached a record high of about 180 gigawatts. 

This is slightly less than 70% of all non-hydropower renewables added during the same year. 

Read more: India’s utility-scale solar addition to slow in 2023

“We expect solar PV capacity growth to maintain dominance in the non-hydropower renewables sector, contributing to about 65% of the sector's capacity growth and 52% of the overall net capacity growth,” the report read in part. 

BMI also found that price pressures only impacted its growth slightly as developers were able to stockpile materials when prices were low, whilst others secured supply contracts at low cost. 

“We highlight that price pressures cascaded into 2023, with the average installation costs of solar PV projects commissioned from January 2023 to May 2023 increasing by 8%, compared to 2022's average.”