Global consulting firm Mercom Capital has forecast global solar installations to reach 57.4 GW in 2015, revising its previous forecasts upwards due to positive news coming out of China.
“We are revising our forecast upwards since our previous update due to positive news coming out of China along with revised installation goals,” said Raj Prabhu, CEO and Co-Founder of Mercom Capital Group, which is expecting China, Japan, and the United States to account for 60% of global solar installations in 2015.
Mercom’s revised forecast is up several GW, relying on China’s recent revision to its own solar installation targets for 2015. In March, Mercom forecast global solar installations would reach 54.5 GW, however, since then China has revised her solar installation target by 20%, aiming to reach 18 GW by the end of the year.
“With the specific steps put forward by the National Energy Administration (NEA) and the 5 GW already installed in the first quarter, 17.8 GW is a more achievable target this year. Omission of a specific installation target for distributed solar projects, which contributed to missing the 2014 goal, is a positive,” added Prabhu.
As mentioned, Mercom believes China, Japan, and the US will account for a significant portion of the global solar installation over 2015.
Specifically, Japan is expected to install approximately 10 GW this year, and the US is expected to install approximately 8.8 GW of solar in 2015, with the December 31, 2016 deadline for the Investment Tax Credit expiration driving a lot of installation. A report from IHS released earlier this month predicted that the US is expected to install more than 32 GW of utility-scale solar before the deadline.
As can be seen in the chart above, Germany’s solar installations continue to fall, while both the UK and India are making steady installation increases. Mercom expects the UK to have its best year for solar installations, with many developers attempting to beat the expiration of the Renewables Obligation Certificates for projects larger than 5 MW.
Last month, Mercom revised its India forecasts, now expecting the country to install 2.2 GW in 2015.
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