Last year saw a record for solar, in terms of newly deployed capacity. This year, however, growth may be limited by new regulations for project siting. South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) has estimated that around 4.1 GW of new PV systems were grid connected in the country last year. If confirmed by official statistics, this result would compare to 3.8 GW in 2019 and 2.4 GW in 2018 and would make 2020 the most successful year ever recorded by the country. At the end of December, South Korea's cumulative installed PV capacity should have reached around 15.6 GW. Last year “marked the third year after the Korean government's 20%-renewables-by-2030 plan announcement, causing a boom in solar,” Yeji Kim, researcher at Seoul-based Solutions For Our Climate, told pv magazine. “Large scale PV plants–over 1 MW [in scale]–were built in the country for the first time but, unfortunately, we could not find the exact number of installations completed in 2020.” According to her, however, this year's growth may be lower than that of 2020, as several regional administrations are limiting the development of utility scale projects through new regulations for project siting. Citing recent numbers from the Korea Energy Agency (KEA), the analyst said the newly installed PV capacity for the first quarter of this year reached 0.56 GW while, in the same period of 2020, new PV systems had totaled over 1 GW. The Korea Photovoltaic Industry Association (KOPIA) recently said it expects around 3 GW of new PV will be installed in the country this year. “Despite the record growth in South Korea's solar, renewables are still strangled, unable to grow as fast as they should,” Kim added. South Korea currently plans to install 30.8 GW of solar by 2030. This ambitious target is expected to be achieved by building giant solar parks such as a 2.1 GW floating solar project, and a 3 GW ground-mounted PV array that was announced for the Saemangeum area by South Korean president Moon Jae-in in November 2018. More recently, the South Korean government announced a plan to add another 2.1 GW of floating PV by 2030. Furthermore, the MOTIE is planning to allocate around 4 GW of solar capacity this year across two PV tenders, which will likely be launched in April and October. The ministry has also recently announced it wants to help development of unsubsidized solar by allowing domestic electricity consumers to buy power from renewable energy power producers through power purchase agreements (PPAs).

It’s reported that the renewable energy accounts for approximately 20% of its energy mix in Mexico. In 2017, the Mexican Ministry of Energy announced a new energy transition plan on its official website and established the goal of new energy development. It is estimated that new energy will account for 30% by 2021 and 60% by 2050. And it is expected to become the world's seventh largest solar market in 2021. The application of fixed structure solar plants and solar tracker plants are evolving in a rapid way. In this chapter, we are going to share the case study of ANT-cloud solar tracker （single-axis 2P solar tracker）applied for solar plant in Mexico. Project background -Location: Mexico -Wind Speed: 40m/s -Installed: May 2021 -Size of system: 498KW -Array layout: 2×42 Product details - Module orientation: Portrait - Ramming pile embedment (below ground ):1500mm -Tracking range: ±50° - Module brand: Trina solar 495W -Modules per string:14 - String voltage: 1000V -Rail material: Galvanized carbon steel - Post: Galvanized carbon steel - Warranty: 5 years drive and control, 15 years structure Special Features Of The Ant-cloud solar tracker • Adopted synchronous multi-point actuator offering greater stability • Easy-installed actuator, only require one single person • SCADA platform for real time monitoring and offer smart  weather protection mode • Tracking algorithm: astronomical algorithm+ intelligent algorithm • Completed CPP wind tunnel testing for greater stability For more about the utilising of  Ant-cloud solar tracker, please click here to see the 1MW Power Park in Thailand.

Ground-mounted utility scale solar PV power systems continued to clearly dominate the solar space in 2019 – and this won’t change until 2024. The segment had a share of around 64% last year, which is anticipated to hike to 69% in 2021, and then remain flat at around 68% for the coming years. The slight ‘weakness‘ of utility-scale solar in 2019 is in direct relation to the market developments in China and India. Both world leading markets have been strongholds of ground-mounted PV power plants. While the termination of the feed-in tariffs for large-scale power plants in May 2018 in China resulted in immediate market contraction, it also directly had a positive impact on rooftop PV. This development continued in 2019 when solar demand in China fell even steeper. Still, close to 60% of the solar capacity added in China last year were utility-scale power plants. The other leading market that disappointed last year was India, where the bulk of the total installed capacity are ground-mounted power plants. Less PV demand in India meant less utility-scale power plants for the world. On the other hand, the United States, as the world’s No. 2 PV market, saw increasing demand in 2019, mostly driven by a year-end deadline for the 30% ITC, which primarily triggered investments in utility-scale PV capacities. However, deploying large volumes of utility-scale solar is much simpler to deploy than creating a distributed PV rooftop market, which requires a substantial period of time and a lot of effort to educate consumers, while setting up an effective platform with the right financing instruments and technical standards. That’s why emerging markets usually begin their solar chapter with tenders for utility-scale solar and frequently struggle to set up the distributed rooftop segment, even if politicians generally prefer PV on roofs which they consider the natural place for the technology as it avoids any potential conflicts on land use. A good example for such a development is India, which targets 100 GW of solar by 2022, with 40 GW coming from rooftop solar. But of the 35.7 GWAC total of solar power capacity installed by the end of 2019, only 4.4 GWAC were rooftop systems—the vast majority (88%) was utility-scale PV power plants. The Indian Government had approved 1.7 billion USD under its Sustainable Rooftop Implementation for Solar Transfiguration of India (SRISTI) programme in 2018 to accelerate the installation of rooftop solar. Instead, an economic slowdown had pulled that rooftop solar down, resulting in the first decline for the small segment in five years in India. Two relatively recent solar feed-in tariff hot-spots and new GW-scale markets, Vietnam and Ukraine, have been also focusing on utility-scale solar, whereas the European country’s net metering programme has been nurturing a small rooftop market as well. However, even the most advanced solar rooftop market, Australia, with more than 2.3 million solar homes, has recently been leaning towards uti...

Recently, a 1MW solar tracker project located in Rayong, Thailand is under smooth installation, which adopted Antaisolar ANT-cloud solar tracker with precast concrete foundation. Due to the impact of Covid-19, the completion will extended to at the end of August, 2021. About ANT-cloud ANT-cloud the multi-actuator single-axis 2P solar tracker, is the best match with bifacial modules. Designed with patent linear-actuator drive through electric synchronously, this advanced system is free from transmission bar which allows for quick installation, convenient maintenance and low consumption, effectively reducing the labor cost. What are the tracker’s advantages for this projects? As for installation efficiency , Antaisolar Ant-cloud is equipped with easy-installed actuator  which only require one single person to install, the patent torque tube fastener also provide a unique way for 2 times faster installation. Antaisolar’s sales engineers came on site to give any support for the smooth installation. Moreover, with Astronomical Algorithms+Intelligent Algorithms, Antaisolar Ant-cloud solar tracker can iterate the optimized tracking angle for each controller with a 0.5%-3% power generation increased compared with traditional algorithm. Upon completion, intelligent O&M based on self-developed SCADA platform can offer system potential risks forewarning and weather condition warning to ensure the stability of power plant. Ant-cloud solar tracker has proven to be proper solution for large scale solar power plants in many other countries such Mexico, China, Armenia, etc. A few of projects utilized Antaisolar’s tracker in Thailand are under production and will add to local clean energy generation.

Source: https://www.energymagazine.com.au/rooftop-solar-australias-second-largest-generator/ The Australian Energy Council (AEC) has released its Quarterly Solar Report, revealing that rooftop solar is now the second largest generator by capacity in Australia – contributing over 14.7GW in capacity. The AEC’s Quarterly Solar Report shows while coal-fired generation has more capacity, rooftop solar is continuing to expand with 109,000 systems installed in the second quarter of 2021. AEC Chief Executive, Sarah McNamara, said, “While the 2020/21 financial year was difficult for most industries due to the impact of COVID-19, Australia’s rooftop solar PV industry does not appear to have been overly affected, based on this AEC analysis.” Solar uptake by state New South Wales cracked the nation’s top five with two postcodes during the 2021 financial year, with the biggest growth for NSW solar installations landing north west of the Sydney CBD Victorian postcodes 3029 (Hoppers Crossing, Tarneit, Truganina) and 3064 (Donnybrook) have held the top ranks for the past two years; these suburbs had an equivalent number of solar systems installed with capacities of approximately 18.9MW Queensland claimed four spots during 2020 but southwest Brisbane’s 4300 is the only postcode in the top ten in 2021, ranking third with nearly 2,400 systems installed and 18.1MW connected to the grid Western Australia has three postcodes in the top ten, each installed around 1800 systems with a capacity of 12MW in FY21 “All jurisdictions, except the Northern Territory, hit records for the number of solar panels installed compared to the previous financial year,” Ms McNamara said. “During the 2020/21 financial year, around 373,000 solar systems were installed on Australian homes, up from 323,500 during 2019/20. Installed capacity also jumped from 2,500MW to more than 3,000MW.” Ms McNamara said that continued low technology costs, increased working from home arrangements and a shift in household spending to home improvements during the COVID-19 pandemic played a key role in the increase of rooftop solar PV systems.