North American Solar Photovoltaic Market to Double in Q4 2011

December 5th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

This comes as no surprise to those of us following the market, but it may come as a big one to FOX News (& friends) — the North American solar photovoltaic market is set to double in quarter four of 2011 compared to quarter four of 2010.

The PV market is projected to increase 33% over quarter three 2011, and 101% over quarter four 2010.

The U.S. is projected to account for 84% of the market this quarter, and Canada (largely Ontario, because of its world-leading feed-in tariff and the “cool” or “contagion” factor), the other 16%. Breaking it down by states and provinces, it would look like this:

California: 21%
Ontario: 16%
New Jersey: 11%
Other U.S. States: 52%

Reaching the U.S. Solar Energy Industry Agency’s goals and projections, the U.S. solar industry looks like it will double this year (as it also did last year), reaching about 1.9 GW of new solar capacity.

But, with all sorts of uncertainty on the table, the question is where the industry will go next…. “Caught between strong utility-scale project demand, declining solar incentives in distributed generation applications, module over-supply, and significant policy uncertainty, the North American photovoltaic (PV) market is at a crossroads, according to the conclusions of the recently-released NPD Solarbuzz North America PV Markets Quarterly report,” Solarbuzz reports. Overall, though, the future looks sunny.

“PV is now positioned to take significant market share from other energy sources as it approaches grid parity in some regions. Downstream companies are facing enormous challenges to adapt to rapidly changing channel structure and business models in order to successfully participate in that opportunity,” said Craig Stevens, President of NPD Solarbuzz.

2012 is looking to have more challenges than previous years, largely due to the SolarWorld-China trade disputes, “with clear evidence that some Chinese manufacturers and project developers have already started to delay shipments and installations,” and the expiration of the US federal cash grant for solar projects.

However, Solarbuzz still forecasts the North American market tripling in size by 2015, “with the ground-mount installations securing the largest market share of 42%.”

For more on what’s driving U.S. and Canada solar growth, check out the news release or report on Solarbuzz.

Solar panels & engineers via shutterstock

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Tags: solar industry, solar market, u.s. solar industry, U.S. solar market, us solar business, US solar industry, us solar market

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.