RatedPower study: Confidence in energy storage higher than for solar

Some 48.3% of respondents to a survey of clean energy industry professionals said energy storage was a key area for growth through 2029, more than the 30.8% of participants who highlighted solar’s promise.

The “2025 Global Renewable Trends Report” has been published by RatedPower, a Spanish utility-scale solar project software company owned by Texan energy software-as-a-service business Enverus.

The publication canvassed more than 140 industry representatives and the report also included RatedPower user statistics, providing insights into the most popular design trends among more than 45,000 sites on the project design platform.

With energy storage and solar topping the list of most promising trends, green hydrogen came third after being cited by 9.8% of survey respondents.

The United States, China, Australia, Brazil, and India have the best renewables growth potential, according to industry insiders, followed by Germany and Spain. Government support, strong economic incentives, and favorable geographic locations were all mentioned as key factors in their anticipated potential.

Respondents to the survey again highlighted grid saturation and instability and permitting and regulation as their chief worries, just as they did in 2024, but the number of people citing those problems fell around 6% each for the 2025 edition of the report.

The industry representatives said supportive policy, incentives, and more streamlined permitting processes could unlock the potential of battery energy storage systems, agrivoltaics, floating solar, and offshore wind and they also spoke of the impact artificial intelligence, machine learning, and digitalization will have on the cleantech industry.

Key facts

Some 93.7% of respondents rated their confidence in the future of the industry at four or five out of five and 60.1% said grid congestion and instability was the critical challenge facing the renewable energy industry, down from 66.7% last year.

The RatedPower statistics indicated hybrid clean energy plants, combining more than one technology, accounted for between 11% and 28% of simulations compiled using the platform during the four quarters of last year.

Bifacial modules were the solar panel of choice in more than 91% of simulations, and hit a record 94.46% from October through December. Trina Solar, Jinko Solar, JA Solar, CSI Solar, and Longi Solar were the five most popular module makers used in RatedPower project simulations. Yingli Energy Development, Trina Solar, Jinko Solar, Emmvee Photovoltaic Power, and Reliance New Solar Energy were the manufacturers with the highest average rated panel power.

More than 60% of RatedPower solar project simulations in 2024 featured string inverters. That upward trend has been consistent in recent years but central inverters remain more popular in simulations of plants with a peak power of 100 MW or more.

The most popular inverter manufacturers used in the simulations were Sungrow, Huawei Technologies, SMA, Power Electronics, Gamesa Electric, Ingeteam, and TMEIC.

In the final quarter of last year, solar trackers accounted for around 60% of installations, compared to 38% for fixed-mount panels and 2% for east-west configured modules. A preference for solar trackers has remained consistent over the past few years.

Nextracker continued to lead the mounting system brands chosen on the RatedPower platform, followed by TrinaTracker and Array Technologies. Soltec and Gamechange Solar rounded out the top five.

Fixed-mount panels were most common in China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Indonesia. Developers in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Italy, and the United States preferred tracker-mounted panels.

From pv magazine España.