By Greentech Lead Team: China leads the PV market in Asia
in 2011. The newly connected PV capacity in 2011 was 2,000 MW, while cumulative
capacity is 2,900 MW. The Chinese market was pushed thanks to the deployment of
FiT at provincial level.
Outside Europe, China will probably rank first in 2011,
with at least 2 GW of new PV systems installed and connected.
Rapid growth was also seen in the USA, with at least 1.6
GW of newly connected systems. This is nearly double the 2010 market figures.
Behind those two leaders, Japan is expected to have
connected over 1 GW of PV systems in 2011 benefitting from the revised FiT
scheme. In Asia-Pacific, the performance of Australia was impressive, with some
700 MW of new installations in 2011. India installed over 300 MW during last
year, according to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association.
Sizeable contributions came also from three other markets
in different parts of the world: 300 MW from Canada, 140 MW from Ukraine (two
large plants) and 130 MW from Israel.
In 2010, 80 percent of global PV system connections were
counted in Europe; in 2011, Europe’s share declined to 75 percent.
Increasing the PV momentum by adding additional markets
of important growth can be considered the single most important achievement on
the continued growth track of world-wide PV development. And yet, many of the
cited markets, in particular China, the USA and Japan, but also Australia and
India, have addressed only a very small part of their enormous potential;
several countries from large sunbelt regions like Africa, the Middle East, Asia
and South America are on the brink of starting their development.
In Europe, over 50 GW of PV systems were installed at the
end of 2011. With growing contributions from Southern European countries, the
average load factor of this capacity is increasing and will produce some 60
billion kWh on an annual basis, enough energy to supply over 15 million
European households.
