Ever since the Japanese government passed the Act on Special Measures concerning the Procurement of Renewable Energy in July, 2012, the amount of grid-connected installation in Japan continued to increase. According to EnergyTrend, a research division of TrendForce, 24.5GW of PV systems have passed the certification, in which, 22.5GW were systems above 10kW. It showed that the focus has started to shift from residential systems to utility-scale power plants after the new Act took place.
Affected by the global economic downturn, there has been rising number of city bankruptcies. In turn, city management are increasingly valuing sustainable development. Outdoor lighting construction and maintenance costs have gradually increased over the years in city public lighting expenditures. City managers are creating suitable living environment that uses low investment and maintenance costs and can be met on a limited budget.
Last week, there were two headlines for solar industry on both positive and negative sides – the positive one was that China officially announced its new PV system installation target of 14GW in 2014, which represented a strong market demand; the negative one was that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) had filed SolarWorld’s petition against dumping and subsidies.
According to the survey by WitsView, the display research division of the global intelligence provider TrendForce, as LCD monitor brands boosted shipment in Q4’13 and lifted the inventory level at the retailer end, and the procurement momentum was impacted on some brands’ advanced pull-in at the end of last year before the Lunar New Year labor shortage, the SI makers’ January shipment declined 10.3% MoM and dropped sharply 13.1% YoY and one of them saw the panel inventory higher than four weeks because of the sudden drop in brands’ procurement.