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Wednesday, 06 November 2024

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Bad forecasts for the PV solar industry in 2006

Although 2005 saw an increase of 34% in PV capacity installed worldwide, at 1,460 MW, the industry will experience a slowdown in 2006, with an expected growth of only 10%, according to a report by Solarbuzz, an American solar monitoring company. Silicon scarcity is to be blamed for it. "Total PV capacity installed worldwide grew by 39% in 2005 and is now above 5 GW", noted Mr Craig Stevens, from Solarbuzz. "Investment in new cell manufacturing plants was above 1 billion dollars in 2005", he added, "and the PV industry collected more than 1.8 billion dollars in stockmarkets last year".

Germany remains leading the way, with a growth of 53% during 2005, to reach 837 MW, Solarbuzz estimates. This figure represents 57% of the world's market, or eight times the total power installed in America. Solarbuzz estimates that the world's production of PV cells was 1,656 MW in 2005, some 44.5% above the less impressive 1,146 MW produced in 2004. The Japanese PV industry was the leading one with 46% of the cells, while Europe produced 28% and the US less than 10%.

Situation in Spain
Despite Solarbuzz's global forecast for 2006, BP Solar, from its office in Tres Cantos (Madrid) expects a growth close to 30% in Spain for 2006, compared with last year's estimated 25% (official figures are still to be confirmed).

Meanwhile, Malaga-based Isofotón, Spain's largest manufacturer, said to Energías Renovables, that there are "speculative trends" among the seven or eight main silicon producers, which is creating rises in the price of this material to the point of leaving it now at "five or six times" greater than the one seen two years ago.

Likewise, Spain's PV Industry Association (ASIF) estimates that the rise has been around 100%, well below Isofotón's figure. However, ASIF believes that that rise is enough to break the downward trend seen in PV facilities in the last years, achieved thanks to higher market volumes and its subsequent scale economies. More notably, ASIF states that, not considering silicon prices -which has increased the average PV prices by 5%- a fall in prices of 5% would have been observed.

For additional information:
www.solarbuzz.com
www.isofoton.es
www.asif.org
www.bp.com

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