Greentech Lead Asia: The distributed solar energy
generation market will increase to more than $154 billion annually by 2015 with
a CAGR of 18 percent from approximately $66 billion in 2010.
During that period, total installed capacity of
distributed PV is expected to rise from 9.5 GW to more than 15 GW.
Solar PV was the dominant form of renewable distributed
energy generation, increased the fastest of all renewable technologies between
2006 and 2010. In 2010, the solar PV market grew 72 percent.
According to Pike Research, financial incentives,
typically government-funded ones were the primary drivers for this growth.
Recently such incentives are reduced in some markets and the other factors like
price reductions, new residential financing mechanisms, and third party
ownership models will become the key drivers for the solar PV market for the
foreseeable future.
“Solar PV capacity was added in more than 100 countries
during 2010 and a similar number in 2011. The market is led by residential and
commercial grid-connected PV systems and is concentrated in regions with
favorable financial incentives, such as premium feed-in tariffs for PV,
including Germany, Italy, France, Czech Republic, Japan, Canada, and the United
States, led by California,” said Dexter Gauntlett, research analyst.
Markets that are dependent on financial incentives are
expected to recover suddenly. In 2008, a 500 MW cap in the tariff
caused the Spanish PV market to collapse. Germany, by far the largest market
for solar PV systems, recently cut its tariff as well. Using the lessons
learned from these markets, other countries are proceeding more cautiously by
incorporating caps, local content rules, and restrictions into their programs
to help predict and manage the costs.