Efficiency, energy-storage, and acquisition are top trends in solar PV for 2014

EnergyTrend identifies three important trends in the solar photovoltaic industry for the year 2014. They are solar cells are going to be more efficient, they're going to be sold with energy storage systems, and the solar PV industry is looking for more acquisitions. The target efficiency for multi-silicon cell is 18% by the end of year 2014 and the crystalline silicon products remain the mainstream in the overall market, according to EnergyTrend. Multi-si are said to be the most popular ones due to the excellent quality, reasonable price, and simpler power plant design and inverter specifications. EnergyTrend projects solar PV cell efficiency will rise to 17.6%~17.8% in the first half of 2014. While 60 pieces of cells’ module is equivalent to 250/255W, 72 pieces of cells’ module is equivalent to 300/305W. By the end of 2014, mainstream will be products above 255/305W with efficiency of 17.8%~18%, according to EnergyTrend. Selling energy storage products along with PV system as a set is also going to be the next big trend in 2014, according to EnergyTrend. EnergyTrend says "Most of the countries switch their PV development focus to self-consumption or peak-electricity usage adjustment because subsidies have been cut or even cancelled in different regions. Meanwhile, residential systems have become more popular as the development of large-scale power plants starts to s...