Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables has published a new report which outlines the analyst group’s prediction that global solar PV installations will reach a new high of 114.5 gigawatts (GW) in 2019, growing by 17.5% on 2018 and putting the industry on track to reach around 125 GW per year by the early 2020s.
Image Credit: 8minute Solar Energy
Wood Mackenzie published its Global solar PV market outlook update for the second quarter last week, claiming that the global solar PV industry is now back on “a strong growth trajectory” after what was a slow start to 2019 after a general slowdown in 2018.
“Global growth will continue despite a gradual slow-down in China, the world’s largest PV market,” said Tom Heggarty, Wood Mackenzie Senior Research Analyst. “The Chinese market peaked at 53 GW in 2017, driven by generous feed-in tariffs. A move towards more competitive procurement of solar PV will lead to more sustainable annual additions of 30-40 GW.”
Importantly, moving forward, Wood Mackenzie expects countries installing between 1 GW and 5 GW annually to be the market’s major growth engine. Specifically, in 2018, there were seven markets installing between 1 GW and 5 GW; by 2022, Wood Mackenzie predicts there will be 19, with new names including Saudi Arabia, France, and Taiwan.
Annual solar PV demand by major region, 2015-2024
Image Credit: Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables
“In India, auction activity is starting to recover after a slow-down caused by land and transmission constraints,” explained Heggarty. “In the US, announcements of new state utility IRPs, in Florida for example, are good news for the solar PV market. The European market will grow strongly as policy markets look to deliver on 2020 and 2030 renewable energy targets. In Latin America, Brazil looks to be the most exciting market of the moment, with both auctioned PPAs with distributors and free market contracts with large consumers on offer. In the Middle East, all eyes are on the upcoming 1.5 GW auction in Saudi Arabia, which is set to be extremely competitive.”
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