‘Extremely useful and interesting...’. That is the verdict of Photon International magazine on the statistics published in the eleventh edition of ‘Trends in Photovoltaic Applications’, the latest in the series of annual surveys of PV in selected IEA countries covering the period 1992 to 2005.
The report also offers some excitement – the amount of PV installed during the year in the IEA PVPS reporting countries exceeded 1 GW for the first time, the annual rate of growth of cumulative installed capacity remained steady at an impressive 42 %, Germany overtook Japan in both installed capacity and installed capacity per capita and, despite the widely reported challenges faced by industry relating to silicon feedstock supply, cell production volume increased by 35 % and production capacity increased by 66 %.
Market overview
Global cumulative installed capacity of PV has now grown to about 3,7 GW – however it should be noted that the big contributors to this are Japan and Germany who between them installed 85 % of the 2005 capacity. An important factor behind the levels of growth experienced by these two countries was the stable market support mechanisms that initially concentrated on residential grid-connected applications. Although the global market is increasingly dominated by grid-connected applications in the reporting countries (about 95 % of the 2005 market), one third of countries report off-grid applications as their dominant market.
Industry
In 2005 there were seven companies and ten plants producing PV grade silicon in four IEA PVPS countries, and about 11 000 tonnes were sold to the PV industry. The balance of about 4 000 t were sourced from remaining inventories and rejects from the semiconductor industry (recycled wafers, pot scrap, tops and tails etc). The total photovoltaic cell production volume for 2005 in the IEA PVPS countries was reported to be 1 500 MW, up from 1 109 MW in 2004. The largest growth in absolute numbers took place in Japan (220 MW) and Germany (143 MW). However, the growth rate in Germany (72 %) outpaced the rate in Japan (36 %). Japan is the leading producer of cells (824 MW) and modules (773 MW), accounting for 55 % and 50 % respectively of the IEA PVPS countries’ total production in 2005. Germany maintains second position with 23 % and 18 % of production respectively. In the USA, the third largest producing country, cell and module production increased by 13 % and 42 % respectively from 2004. Outside the IEA PVPS countries both China and Taiwan consolidated the significance of their contribution to global PV production with further strong growth in 2005. With the rapid expansion of the worldwide market for grid-connected PV systems, manufacturers of PV inverters reported impressive growth rates in 2005.
Price evolution
The lowest achievable installed price of grid-connected PV systems in 2005 varied between countries. The average price was 6,6 USD per watt in 2005, marginally up on 2004. Similar to 2004, the lower reported prices in 2005 were typically around 5,5 USD to 6,5 USD per watt. On average, system prices for the lowest price off-grid applications are double those for the lowest price grid-connected applications. In 2005 the average price of modules in the reporting countries was around 4,5 USD/W, an increase of less than 5 % over the corresponding figure for 2004. Interestingly, a number of countries reported a decrease in module prices from 2004 while other countries reported almost no change. It is worth noting that the widely discussed increase in module prices was largely a European phenomenon in 2005.
Business indicators
Three-quarters of the countries reporting on economic benefits of PV developments estimated that the net business value increased by over 30 % throughout 2005. Total direct employment is now reported to be at least 55 000 persons across research, manufacturing, development and installation in the IEA PVPS countries, and has increased by around 17 % compared to 2004. A trend for labour intensive manufacturing activities, such as module assembly, to move to low cost base economies can be observed. Many manufacturing companies in Europe have continued to benefit from the strong level of demand within Germany, even when their domestic markets have diminished due to the ending of specific programmes.
Information
More detailed information plus additional topics can be found in the
report itself. A downloadable version of the Trends report can be found in
the publications' section.
Further analysis of alternative models for promotion of PV and other renewables
in the IEA PVPS countries is provided in the article The
billion $ question.
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