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Leading investment house Deutsche Bank has dramatically lifted its demand forecasts for the global solar industry – predicting that 46 gigawatts (GW) of solar PV will be installed across the world in 2014, before jumping by another 25 per cent to 56GW in 2015.

Most recently, they've been piloting distributed energy storage (DES). If the predictions below are true, DES could be a real game-changer.

In terms of media type, digital outperforms previous predictions for 2014 with year-on-year growth forecast at 16.1%. Digital will also increase its total share of spend, reaching 20.5% in 2014 and 22.6% next year, when it will out-pace the combined magazines and newspaper global share for the first time.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — China's demand for iron ore, copper, coal and aluminum will increase dramatically during the next 15 years before India takes the lead in its need for those commodities, global miner Rio Tinto Ltd. predicted in its annual report released Tuesday.

Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy

What's the key to using alternative energy, like solar and wind? Storage -- so we can have power on tap even when the sun's not out and the wind's not blowing. In this accessible, inspiring talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. As he says: "We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap." Donald S

1. Industry outlookThe report's baseline deployment forecast, shows Europe achieving between 26 - 27GW of installed capacity by 2020, of which around 23GW is new installations.Such deployment would:- Occur mainly in the UK and Germany.- Require around 3,500 turbines plus associated infrastructure.- Cost upwards of £75 billion (€86 billion) based on current industry practices.2. Power cable demandGrowth in resulting cable installations will be significant, with an estimated 6,000km of export cable, 2,000km of EU inter-connector cable and 6,500km of array cable installations by 2020.The report's findings show:- In terms of total cable installations, the report predicts that demand will more than double over the period to 2020, with growth of between 2.5 and 3.0 times that of 2011 occurring in both export and array installations.- A near-doubling of export and inter-connector installations by 2016. Thereafter, growth is limited as HVDC use increases and general industry growth slows.- A 250% rise in array cable installations from 350km in 2011 to 900km by 2020.3. Export cable supply vs. demandThe authors estimate that annual export cable installation supply currently stands at around 600 - 650km (vs. 500km 2011 demand). Identified capacity additions are limited. Our analysis shows that export cable installation capacity needs to increase by around 75% within 2 - 3 years if demand is to be met.

The growing economies such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar are likely to focus more on the transmission grid expansion and reliability. Rural electrification and increasing the overall electrification ratio will be their top priority.

This is, in fact, the crux of the argument: It isn't enough to simply establish clear rules in a trading center. Governments can only successfully combat speculators if they coordinate their efforts worldwide and remove the cloak of secrecy from their commodities transactions. As long as this fails to happen, the price of copper will remain unpredictable and industry will be at the mercy of speculators. Companies will no longer be able to assume that copper will be expensive when it's scarce and cheap when it's available in abundance. Speculation destroys the basic signaling function that prices have in a market economy, says Heiner Flassbeck, chief economist at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Although a lot of money moves around as a result of price distortions, speculation doesn't create any real value, says Flassbeck. "The only thing that's created is an illusion of value." Making Life Difficult for Everyone In the end, the popular assessment that speculators are the purest of capitalists is by no means correct. In truth, they are the biggest enemies of the market, because they undermine its central mechanism, the efficient balancing of supply and demand. In doing so, they make life difficult for everyone: for industry, which can no longer predict how expensive its raw materials will be; for consumers, who are forced to bear the costs; and, finally, for copper producers, who face more risk when planning ahead. When the executives at CODELCO in Santiago make investment decisions today, it will be another three to five years before the results become visible. That's how long it takes to develop a new mine or expand an existing mine. The company plans to invest about $15 billion by 2015, but its executives have never been so uncertain about whether their predictions are correct. One thing is clear: Production costs will continue to rise. Now that deposits near the surface, which are easier to mine, are becoming depleted, mining companies are forced to dig deeper and deeper pits.