After the success of 2023, the development of the German PV market in 2024 is also encouraging. Germany installed more than 1GW of PV systems in January this year, and this growth momentum will continue in February. This can be inferred from the sales figures of PV module manufacturers and wholesalers.

However, higher market demand conflicts with the hesitant shipment strategies of PV module manufacturers. Obviously, after experiencing a large inventory caused by the overproduction of photovoltaic modules last year, the capacity of photovoltaic modules has been significantly reduced, and the oversupply in the market has been curbed. This is to stop the sharp decline in the price of photovoltaic modules from last year.

However, this happened only gradually. The price of photovoltaic modules in February this year no longer showed a significant decline in price, but a sideways movement. Today, only the price of high-efficiency photovoltaic modules has fallen slightly.

Due to a large backlog of inventories in Europe last autumn, the price of photovoltaic modules is on a downward trend. PV system installers began stockpiling PV modules and inverters in the following months. The delay in the delivery of photovoltaic modules led to a slight increase in prices.

Man-made supply shortages and increased transportation costs are affecting the supply of photovoltaic modules. Starting in April or May of this year, many PV module suppliers will only offer high-performance PV modules and inverters to new customers. Orders for large-size PV modules, mainly for ground-mounted PV plants, may not be completed until June this year.

The perception of insufficient supply and long delivery times has changed. Manufacturing and shipping of PV modules slowed down during the Spring Festival, and delivery times are also being delayed, now up to eight weeks, indicating that the supply shortage of PV modules will last for a long time. This may be solved by the adoption of lower performance photovoltaic products. Unfortunately, in the near future, Europe does not have a strong PV industry to mitigate this turbulence.

To prevent this from happening, European governments should work to create fair conditions for local PV module manufacturers and eventually eliminate European tariffs on primary products, as they have done with PV modules. And as some of the protests have shown, pure subsidy policies without a transition strategy to fair and sustainable competition only invite resentment.