Rooftop PV – largely responsible for the unprecedented growth of 2023 – is set to maintain a significant portion of installation volume with almost 190 GWdc, matching last year’s additions. Residential PV is set to take an increased share of rooftop PV distribution with 108 GWdc, while commercial & industrial PV additions are expected to experience a slight decrease in growth, landing at 78 GWdc. Utility-scale additions will amount to roughly 275 GWdc of installations in 2024. Nevertheless, potential bottlenecks for solar installations in 2024 will have to be overcome, including high debt costs, increased installation expenses, transmission constraints, and market saturation.

Despite record solar PV deployment, installations are struggling to keep pace with added manufacturing capacity across the value chain, where all segments – from polysilicon to module manufacturing – are set to surpass 1 terawatt direct current (TWdc) of nameplate capacity this year, more than double that of expected additions.

While onshoring efforts are well underway in key regions such as the US, India, and Europe, most of the capacity additions are set to be built in mainland China.

While onshoring efforts are well underway in key regions such as the US, India, and Europe, most of the capacity additions are set to be built in mainland China. By the end of 2024, China is expected to be responsible for 96% of polysilicon, ingot, and wafer production capacity, 90% of cell manufacturing capacity, and 81% of module manufacturing capacity. Meanwhile, manufacturing capacity additions outside of China are mainly showing a tendency of backward integration. Although there are solid plans for module manufacturing, the supply chain is still lagging. The US is set to meet module demand with domestic supply this year, and cells only in 2026, but the current pipeline for polysilicon and ingots and wafers is not set to match demand this decade.

The European pipeline is similar, although slightly weaker as it is heavily reliant on few but large manufacturing plans that need funding from the European Union. The incentives under the US Inflation Reduction Act are designed to stimulate broader and more diverse expansion. Module manufacturing in the EU is expected to meet current targets by 2026 if all expansion announcements come to fruition, but none of the earlier steps of the supply chain are anticipated to match the growth seen in module manufacturing. As a result of the imbalanced PV value chains outside of mainland China, all other regions will remain reliant on Chinese PV imports to meet their installation targets in the years to come.

Rystad Energy will be present at SNEC and Intersolar in June, when we look forward to delving further into the fast-moving solar PV landscape.

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