Global Solar PV Manufacturing Capacity Expansion Tops 22 GW In Q1

Analysis conducted by PV Tech has concluded that the total global solar PV manufacturing capacity expansion plans for the first quarter of 2015 topped 22 GW.

Solar PV supply chain news and analysis website PV Tech published its latest preliminary analysis of the industry’s first quarter manufacturing capacity expansion announcements this week, which revealed announcements surpassing 22.3 GW — the second highest quarterly figure, falling in behind the mammoth fourth quarter of 2015, in which more than 22.5 GW of capacity announcements were made in November alone.

Thus, as highlighted below, in the space of two quarters, the global solar PV manufacturing industry announced capacity expansions over 49.4 GW, flying past the previous year period which only had 16 GW.

Dedicated solar cell capacity expansion announcements reached past 7 GW, compared to 15 GW in the previous quarter. Integrated solar cell and module assembly line capacity announcements reached 3.5 GW, whereas 2015’s fourth quarter held none. Dedicated module assembly capacity expansion announcements reached around 12 GW, around the same as the quarter before.

The geographical split for these expansion announcements are best looked at overall — as all expansion announcements in March were located in Asia, whereas in February all locations were outside Asia.

Nevertheless, China led the way with 7.1 GW of new expansion plans, followed by India with 5.7 GW, South Korea with 2.2 GW, Malaysia with 2.2 GW, and Vietnam with 1.1 GW.

The full analysis by PV Tech can be viewed here.