Solar PV fastest growing industry

In 2010, the photovoltaic (PV) industry production more than doubled and reached a world-wide production volume of 23.5 gigawatt (GW) of photovoltaic modules, according to the tenth edition of the JRC PV Status Report.

Since 1990, photovoltaic module production has increased more than 500-fold from 46 megawatts (MW) to 23.5 GW in 2010, which makes photovoltaics one of the fastest-growing industries at present.

In 2010, the world-wide photovoltaic production more than doubled, driven by major increases in Europe. For 2010 the annual market volume of newly-installed solar photovoltaic electricity systems varies between 17 and 19 GW, depending on estimates. This represents mostly the grid-connected photovoltaic market, as there are no reliable estimates available for the non grid-connected market.

The report, published by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) shows that with a cumulative installed capacity of over 29 GW, the European Union is leading in PV installations. By the end of 2010, European photovoltaic installations provided more than 70% of the total world-wide solar photovoltaic electricity generation capacity.

Current solar cell technologies are well established with sufficient efficiency and energy output for at least 25 years of lifetime. This reliability, in addition to the increasing potential of electricity interruption from grid overloads, and the rise of electricity prices from conventional energy sources, add to the attractiveness of photovoltaic systems.

A special feature is the dramatic price reduction for solar modules by almost 50% over the last three years. This can be explained by the evolution from a supply to a demand-driven market and the resulting over-capacity for solar modules. Business analysts predict that investments in PV technology could double from € 35-40 billion in 2010 to over € 70 billion in 2015, while they expect prices for consumers to continuously decrease.