- In the past few years, China's solar subsidy has been capped and reduced to cancellation, but the amount of solar energy installed has been rising, mainly driven by the demand growth from Germany. However, demand in Germany is beginning to decline due to limited cost reduction for manufacturers in the short term. As a result, demand will shift to Asia and North America, where the solar PV market will grow again, but revenue will flatten as price declines outpace sales growth.
Global demand for solar cells will shift to a broader market in the next five years. Japan, China, and India will be the main players in market demand, and the United States will be an important market due to government support.
It is understood that the global grid-connected solar market will grow from 15.8 GW in 2010 to 27.5 GW in 2016, with a CAGR of 15.9%. However, as price declines will outpace sales growth, industry real revenue will fall from $6.42 billion in 2010 to $5.89 billion in 2012 and is expected to return to $6.54 billion in 2016. ”
Photovoltaic energy is the only renewable energy source that can meet human energy demand. First of all, from the perspective of energy consumption, the world's energy demand in 2004 was 13TW (about 13 billion kW), estimated to reach 20TW in 2020, about 30TW in 2050 and about 45TW in 2100. However, among the available clean energy sources, hydraulic energy was less than 0.5TW, ocean energy was less than 2TW, geothermal energy was about 2TW, and wind energy was about 24TW, which could not meet the future demands of mankind. Only solar energy was as high as 2000TW, meeting the requirements. Secondly, solar energy has full economic value at present. The energy recovery period of crystalline silicon solar energy in the main technical route is only 1.5 years, and the energy recovery period of thin film solar cells is shorter, while their service life is up to 25 years, that is, the remaining 22 years can not generate clean energy sources.
Subsidy and parity grid connection are not necessary to generate positive market demand, and the expectation of increased cost of electricity in the future will promote positive market demand. The commercial solar market will reach the grid parity at the fastest, with ten regions by 2016. Commercial solar roof markets at parity will grow from one in 2010 to ten in 2016, including the Dominican Republic and Nigeria. Hawaii will be the first to achieve residential grid parity in 2011. The other seven selected solar markets, including Italy, Denmark and Ukraine, will also be at parity by 2016. The number of utility markets remains small.
At present, the global PV industry has a market size of USD 70-80 billion, with a compound growth rate of 55.9% in the last 10 years (to 2010) and 68% in the last 5 years. However, due to the slowdown of European market growth, the growth in the United States and China is still unclear. It is expected that the compound growth rate will slow down to 20-25% from 2011.
In 2010, the total output of the global PV industry was 29.9GW, a year-on-year increase of 139%, and the output of China accounted for about 45%. In 2010, the global PV installed capacity was 17.5GW, a year-on-year increase of 143%, with Europe accounting for 79.4%. By the end of 2010, the total installed capacity of global PV was 40.3GW.
Popularization route of PV industry: laws and regulations, policy subsidies+feed-in tariff → increase of installed capacity → development of industry and more capital investment in R&D → decrease of product price → decrease of feed-in tariff but good profit still exists in power station → further increase of installed capacity. In general, this is a virtuous cycle process. PV product price will decrease with the increase of installed capacity, and it is expected to realize grid parity finally and replace traditional energy.
With the gradual decline in the price of photovoltaic products and power station construction, it is expected that the United States will achieve parity in 2015, Germany will achieve parity in 2017, and China is expected to achieve the goal by 2020.
