Apricum articles
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Apricum articles
Cobalt crunch? Dealing with the battery industry’s looming supply challenges for cobalt
The global battery market is booming. Car makers all over the world are pledging to electrify their fleets completely or to a large extent in the coming years. Battery-powered consumer electronics – laptops, tablets and smart phones – are more popular and affordable...
How renewables will drive a power sector shakeup in Southeast Asia and why utilities should care
The need to install additional power generation continues to be one of the most relevant issues in Southeast Asia. It’s a region with GDP growth rates of above 6% p.a. during the past decade[1] and where around one-fifth of its population (~25% larger than that of the...
Strong Tailwinds Ahead – the Case for Wind Plus Energy Storage
When people think about combining energy storage with renewable energy, they typically think of adding batteries to PV systems, be it roof-top panels on a home in Germany or multi‑GW utility‑scale installations in the deserts of the MENA region. However, we are...
The Hungry Dragon: Explaining China’s 50 GW+ PV Market in 2017
At the beginning of 2017, the big question regarding solar in China was whether they could repeat the stunning ~35 GW performance of 2016. Yet, over the course of the year, the question transformed, quite surreally, to whether China would hit the 50 GW mark in 2017 –...
The MENA region – the next hot market for energy storage?
Oct 12, 2017: Article updated to include a reference to CSP with storage The global market for stationary battery energy storage is set to experience tremendous growth by 2025 of about 30 times its current size. This is expected to come mainly from the “usual...
The German Secondary Control Reserve market: Will recent regulatory updates finally pave the way for energy storage?
Germany’s Secondary Control Reserve (SCR) market has attracted significant interest from many energy storage players in the past. Requiring minimum energy capacities of at least four hours and energy delivery for even longer periods, the SCR market particularly...
The Five Ingredients for Success in the Future Stationary Energy Storage Market
Through our day-to-day work around the globe, Apricum has gained deep insights about the dynamics of the energy storage markets and what it takes to be successful not only today, but also in a few years from now. Driven by the specific market characteristics, we...
How Chinese Policies Can Control the Global PV Market
In recent months, we saw a flurry of widely diverging predictions on the 2017 global PV market demand – 85 GW from GTM, 79 GW from IHS and Bloomberg, and 74 GW from EnergyTrend – the key differentiating variable being China, the world’s largest market by far with its...
Why China’s international investment strategy can spell good news for growing cleantech companies
Through Outward Direct Investment (ODI), China has set itself on a determined course to greatly increase its international investments, a target befitting one of the world’s economic super powers. In this interview, we speak to Beijing-based Apricum Senior Advisor Dr....