Europe is now home to more than 70 per cent of the world’s installed photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation capacity, according to the tenth annual survey of the industry, carried out by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), published on Monday (5 September).
The push to deploy PV in Europe is driving huge increases in the manufacturing of photovoltaic modules, with production more than doubling in 2010, to reaching a world-wide volume of 23.5 gigawatt (GW), the report says. Since 1990, PV module production has increased more than 500-fold from 46 megawatts (MW) to 23.5 GW in 2010, which makes PV one of the fastest-growing industries.
Current solar cell technologies are well established, with sufficient efficiency and energy output for at least 25 years of lifetime. Coupled with the increasing risk of electricity interruption from grid overloads and rising electricity prices, this is increasing the attractions of PV systems, the report says. As a result, Europe now has a cumulative installed capacity of over 29 GW.
China is the major manufacturing centre for solar cells and modules, followed by Taiwan, Germany and Japan. Amongst the twenty biggest PV manufacturers in 2010, only four had production facilities in Europe, namely First Solar (US, Germany, Malaysia, Vietnam), Q-Cells (Germany and Malaysia), REC (Norway and Singapore) and Solarworld (Germany and US).
The price of solar modules has halved over the last three years. Analysts predict that investments in PV technology could double from €35 - 40 billion in 2010 to over €70 billion in 2015, while prices continue to decrease.
The number of government programmes to promote the use of solar energy is increasing world-wide. Measures to promote the use of PV technology include renewable portfolio standards, and feed-in tariff tax incentives. Coupled with the overall rising energy prices and pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this will continue to keep demand for solar systems high says the report.
The study concludes that to maintain the high growth rate there is a need to reduce the amount of silicon used, since the cost of silicon is one costs. The new technology of concentrated photovoltaics, which uses plastics instead of silicon to concentrate sunbeams will also be important.
The study, carried out by the JRC’s Institute for Energy and Transport, is based on a survey of more than 300 companies worldwide. It looks at the global PV market and industry with a focus on the EU, India, Japan, China, Taiwan and the US, providing an overview of current activities in research, manufacturing and market implementation in the sector.
PV Status Report 2011: Research, Solar Cell Production and
Market Implementation of Photovoltaics, 2011
Receive our Policy Bulletin each Tuesday & Thursday and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
