If module manufacturers and photovoltaic equipment suppliers were looking to the U.S. for markets to compensate for weak European demand, they may be set to be disappointed, a new report has warned.
In the latest report from North-American renewable-energy analysts ClearSky Advisors, the U.S. market is set to disappoint in 2012.
ClearSky forecasts a growth in installations of only seven percent, to 1,628 megawatts (MW). In light of falling module prices, the report also forecasts the photovoltaic market value in 2012 will be equal to or lesser than this year’s.
In this environment, the Toronto-based analysts advise that suppliers will have to carefully target markets in order to prosper. "Simply having a presence in the California and New Jersey markets will not cut it going forward," summed Brennan Louw, Senior Analyst at ClearSky.
The ClearSky market reports predicts that a module-price bottom has not been reached and that "cut-throat competition" will see module prices continuing to fall in the first part of 2012. The market for suppliers is expected to pick up in 2014.
Photovoltaic cost competitiveness is anticipated to occur by 2015 in some areas of the U.S. while California and New Jesery will remain the most important states, "for some time to come".
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