Global Solar PV System Installations in 2011 Continued to Grow by 15% on Year

The global solar PV system installations in 2011 continued to grow by 15% on year, reaching 23.4GW. By regions, Italy has surpassed Germany to become the largest solar market in the world. Together, Italy and Germany accounted for 50% of the market share. The Japan, US and China markets have been showing significant growths, and together the three markets accounted for 25% of the global market. In the future, the solar markets in Japan, the US and China will be comparable to Italy and Germany. The solar industry has been suffering from oversupply, hence it has been difficult to feel the growth of demand. The prices of solar products have been falling rapidly. Polysilicon price fell 70%, solar cell 60%, and solar module 50% in 2011. The entire supply chain has been incurring losses, including those vertically integrated firms. Actually, the vertically integrated firms have been facing trouble supporting their large capital expenditures. It does not matter how the market changes, as the keys to success are low production costs and high conversion efficiencies. When the market continues to demand for solar products with higher conversion efficiencies, solar firms should increase the average conversion efficiencies for every batch and lower the percentage of products with lower efficiencies within the batch to survive the oversupply market conditions. Despite the weak global economy, solar PV system installations still grew in 2011. In addition, the rapid fall of costs of the systems has been stimulating more demand. Despite this continuous growth, the oversupply problem in the industry continues to put pressure on prices, hence the market seems bleak from the firms' point of view. In fact, there are still many solar PV projects waiting to be developed, but due to the debt crisis in Europe, banks have been reluctant to finance such projects. As the financial problems ease, the market demand will continue to show strong growth. Source: www.digitimes.com