Greenpeace and the European PV Industry Association have published their blueprint aimed at showing how solar power is capable of supplying electricity to more than one billion people worldwide within two decades.

The report, "Solar Generation: Solar Electricity for Over 1 Billion People and 2 Million Jobs by 2020" presents market development projections based on historical growth and current national and/or regional targets for installed PV generation capacity up to the year 2010. The study draws on other market analyses to define a consensus for growth to 2020 and beyond. Encouragingly the importance of solar electricity as a tool for social and economic development in the developing world is not overlooked. The study sees the OECD countries dominating the global market to 2010, but by 2020, it expects that over 60% of the predicted 207 GW installed capacity to be in non-industrialised regions, especially South Asia and Africa.

However, apart from calling for the extension of policies to stabilise global PV demand at a level above 1 GWp by 2006, the removal of regulatory and fiscal barriers and the introduction of legally enforced mechanisms to accelerate the new market for PV, the practical recommendations for how to achieve the solar generation transformation are rather thin. There is also little mention of industry's ability to meet the demand, or of how the large number of systems (including 200 million Solar Home Systems for the non-industrialised world) can be delivered.

Nevertheless, as an 'eye-opener' for PV novices, particularly in the political arena, it does give a useful overview of how the global market is developing, and – given suitable political and industrial investment – the job creation and environmental impact potential of sustained PV deployment actions.

Information:

• EPIA, Fax: +32 (0)2 468 2430
  
• Greenpeace, Fax: +31 (0)20 524 6291

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