Markets & Policy

Cumulative photovoltaics (PV) installations will top 120 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2014, according to IMS Research’s recently launched “Global PV Demand Database”. The report also revealed that annual PV installations will grow steadily at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of more than 20 percent between 2011 and 2014. In these four years, says IMS, some 80 GW of new PV capacity will be added globally. Growth rates are predicted to slow over the next four years, however, compared to the huge 95 percent growth rate forecast for this year.

Dr. Farooq Abdullah, the Hon’ble Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy urged the Indian solar photovoltaics (PV) industry to focus on developing research initiatives, during the Solarcon India 2010, held in Hyderabad, India last week.

Saudi Arabia will export as much solar energy as it does petrol today, according to the country’s Minister for Petrol and Raw Materials Ali Al-Naimi, who was speaking at a one-day Saudi-German solar conference, held today in Magdeburg, Germany.

Spain’s Asociación Empresarial Fotovoltaica (AEF) announced at a press conference held last week that negotiations on future solar subsidiaries have been postponed for the next two months, while the country’s government awaits the results of an investigation to find out which PV plants were illegally connected to the power grid in September 2008.

The U.K. photovoltaics (PV) market could be artificially restrained by its government, after attaching certain conditions to its payment of remuneration, says market research institute, EuPD Research.

India’s Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential palace), the residence of the the Honorable President of India has received the ISO 14001:2004 certification, which was granted by the U.K.’s Bureau Veritas in view of the various standardized environment management practices, including solar energy, it has adopted.

Following yesterday’s news that Panasonic is looking set to buy out Sanyo Electric Company, Sanyo Eneos Solar has announced it has postponed its planned photovoltaics thin film production project, originally scheduled to start this year, and is instead concentrating on efficiency enhancement and marketing activities. The reason cited was a “dramatically” changing business environment, due to the decreasing price of crystalline silicon.

Electricity generated from new photovoltaics (PV) installations is now cheaper than electricity from proposed new nuclear plants, in what has been dubbed a historic crossover.

Spain’s Ministry of Industry has presented a decree to the country’s Council of Ministers against the so-called “Fraude Fotovoltaico” or “photovoltaic fraud.”

Last year was a record year for the photovoltaics (PV) inverter market, with shipments of 8.3 gigawatts (GW) generating USD$2.8 billion, according to IMS Research’s latest report on the global solar inverter market. However, it says this is expected to change this year.