Thursday, September 12, 2013

Global solar energy market becoming more stable

For several years now, solar energy industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in the world. However, even despite rapid growth solar energy sector lacked stability because of several different factors such as overcapacity, bankruptcies and record low prices.

The year 2013 look to be far more stable for solar energy industry than this has been the case with the past few years. This is represented by global price stabilization, higher utilization rates and what is extremely important much more balanced supply-demand equation.

The latest report from Mercom Capital group predicts rapid growth in global solar power capacity at approximately 38 GW for 2013, representing a rather noticeable 23% growth compared to 2012.

China is expected to add 8,5 GW of new solar power capacity this year, and somewhat surprising is the fact that Japan is close second with 7 GW of expected solar power capacity to go online by the end of this year. The United States, on the the other hand, is expected to add approximately 4.5 GW of new solar power capacity in 2013.

Japan's move to more solar energy primarily comes as the result of recent Fukushima disaster. This nuclear disaster forced Japan to search for new solutions in effort to diversify its energy portfolio, and solar energy looks to be getting the lion's share of this new plan (Japan currently has one of the most favorable feed-in-tariffs in the world).

Other top solar energy markets in the world forecasted for 2013 are Germany at 4 GW, Italy at 2 GW, UK at 1.5 GW and India at 1 GW. 

 

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