This year’s Trends in Photovoltaic Applications report, published annually by IEA PVPS, will continue to evolve – just like the PV markets it has been tracking for over a decade. And like these markets, the industry chain and PV applications in general, each year brings new issues of interest. We have listened to what our readers have been saying, and the 2005 Trends report, due for publication in August, will reflect this.

If you are not familiar with this series of reports, it is highly regarded as a reliable, freely-available analysis of key industry and market developments from year to year.

The focus of the report is the analysis of trends rather than presentation of current news items, though the reader will find useful summaries of national policies and landmark projects. The report is based on the material provided by each country participating in the IEA PVPS Programme, and presented in the national survey reports (NSRs). The NSRs are finalized by the end of May each year, and are immediately made available on the PVPS website from the countries' pages.

Some things to look out for this year: PV is growing rapidly outside the 20 member countries of the IEA PVPS Programme and presentation of this information will receive more and more attention as globalization of manufacturing increases, and the importance of transfer of knowledge continues to grow. Industry growth has been spectacular – and the question of who is investing (and why and how), and the production chain from raw materials to systems are matters of great interest. Market growth underpins these issues and given that extensive public funding supports PV programmes in many countries, we aim to provide some critical analysis of the relative merits of some of the key support measures.

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