According to research conducted by IMS Research, the global PV market is anticipated to surpass 16GW this year with European countries, such as Germany, North America and China leading the increase in PV demands. The report comes a day after SMA Solar released similar findings with their forecast for the global market to reach 17GW of new installations in 2010 alone.
Ash Sharma (pictured), PV research director, commented, "PV demand has been extremely robust this year with high demand in major European market such as Germany, Italy, France and Czech Republic driven by impending cuts to incentives. This is compounded by the long-awaited emergence of the USA and China which will see exceptional growth this year and are set to become key global PV markets over the next five years. Global demand totaled around 8 GW in the first half of 2010 and all of our indicators show that the rest of the year will be as strong, if not stronger resulting in market of more than 16 GW."
IMS predicts that the top five markets will account for more than 13GW in 2010, yet 2011 has a grimmer outlook as slower growth is foreseen. The research company lends the depression in growth for the PV market to the industry's need to work out important revisions for countries' incentive plans, possible over capacity and price pressure in the supply chain.
