Europe Solar Photovoltaic Market Outlook to 2015 - Impending Challenges Ahead

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

AM Mindpower Solutions announces the release of its new research report titled “Europe Solar Photovoltaic Market Outlook to 2015 - Impending Challenges Ahead”. The report offers a comprehensive analysis of the Solar PV industry across the European Region. It includes a detail analysis of the Europe as a region with further analysis on solar PV market in various countries such as Germany, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic and France.

The report covers information on various topics such as On-Grid and Off-Grid Cumulative and Annual Installed Capacity, PV power per capita, market segmentation, trends prevailing across the region and competitive landscape of the major players operating in the countries. The report entails the SWOT analysis of solar PV market in various countries.

The future outlook presented the base case, conservative case and aggressive case scenario factor analysis providing an insight on the prospects in the solar PV cumulative and annual installed capacity for all the countries and region. The report also includes the cause and effect relationship among the various industry factors prevailing in the solar PV market.

European countries accounted for nearly 74% of the total cumulative installed capacity in 2010 or 29,252 MW in volume terms. The top three countries i.e. Germany, Spain and Italy operating in the region had a combined cumulative capacity of 24,471 MW in 2010. The demand for PV installations increased in Germany and Italy while declined drastically in Spain in 2009.

Power generation through solar PV technology increased 56.2% in 2010. In 2009, 14,377 GWh of power was generated which increased to 22,452 GWh in 2010.

Germany is the biggest PV market across the globe with 17,193 MW of cumulative installed capacity. It is expected that the country will continue to grow in terms of growth in the PV sector in the near future. In 2010, Germany represented more than half of the entire European capacity with a share of 57%.

Italy is regarded as the market with the highest potential in the region with an annual installed capacity of 2,321 MW of capacity. The country receives high level of insolation and the new guideline set by Conto Energia in 2010 is likely to sustain the momentum.

Spain registered growth in the PV sector in 2008. The growth achieved in 2008 can be reiterated from the fact that the annual installed capacity increased from 542 MW in 2007 to 2,708 MW in 2008. The fixation of maximum ceiling along with the global financial crisis had a negative effect on the economy, thereby registering a massive fall in the number of annual installations in 2009. In the succeeding year, the country experienced political turmoil which held the PV market in the country.

The base case scenario assumes normal business conditions where government will reduce the tariff rate in line with the decline in the cost of solar PV systems. Hence, the major growth experienced by the European market is unlikely be reproduced in the short term. The region will however continue to see grid development with legislative support as market stabilizes in 2011 and 2012 before recovering in 2013. This case expects the cumulative installed capacity to grow marginally to ~ MW in 2011 with the projections to almost double itself to ~ MW by 2015.

KEY TOPICS COVERED IN THE REPORT

• The feed-in-tariffs introduced in the various countries and their effect on the solar PV market
• The annual and cumulative PV installations along with PV power per capita in various countries and region from 2006-2010
• Future Outlook on the basis of assumed scenarios i.e. base case, worst case and aggressive case on cumulative installed capacity, annual installed capacity and PV power per capita, from 2011-2015
• Cause and effect relationship analysis between various industry factors prevalent in the region
• SWOT analysis of the solar PV industry and Macro Economic Environment in various countries.
• Competitive Landscape of the various players operating in various countries across the globe.