Mar 18 2010
Solar photovoltaic installations across the world touched a record high of 6.43 GW in 2009, representing a year-on-year growth of 6%. This was revealed in the latest edition of Marketbuzz 2010 Report from Solarbuzz, a part of The NPD Group. Solarbuzz is a consulting and international solar energy market research company. According the report, global revenues of $38 billion was generated by the PV industry in 2009. In addition, over $13.5 billion was successfully raised by the industry in debt and equity in 2009, an increase of 8% from the previous year.
The report from Solarbuzz reveals that 74% of world-wide PV demand in 2009 was accounted by European countries (4.75 GW). Czech Republic, Italy, and Germany were the top three European countries, which together accounted for 4.07 GW. While all the three countries saw significant rise in demand, Italy became the world’s second largest PV market. But the market in Spain collapsed in 2009 touching a low of 4% of its previous year’s demand. The market in the United States grew by 36% to 485 MW making it the world’s third largest. Japan followed closely with a year-on-year growth of 109% and is ranked fourth in the world.
In 2009, the solar cell production across the world reached a total figure of 9.34 GW, which was 6.85 GW in 2008. Of the total production, thin film accounts for 18%. Taiwan and China continue to increase their solar cell production capacities and now 49% of the global production is accounted by these two countries. The leading seven polysilicon manufacturers had per annum installed capacity of 114,500 tons in 2009, an increase of 92% from the previous year. In 2009, the top eight manufacturers of solar wafer accounted for 32.9% of worldwide wafer capacity.
Source: http://www.displaysearch.com