IEA: China drives the growth of the global solar photovoltaic market

In recent years, the IEA's projections for renewable energy have been too low
.
Last year, the agency reported nearly 100GW of solar growth
.
However, it also said growth would be relatively low
if China were left out of that balance sheet.

The International Energy Agency's Photovoltaic Power Generation System Project (IEA PVPS) assessed the global solar market
this week in its "Global PV Market" report.
According to this, the cumulative installed capacity of global photovoltaic power generation reached 402 GW at the end of 2017, while the newly installed photovoltaic power generation capacity last year was about 98 GW
.
In 2016, the total additions were approximately 76 GW
.

The European market is gradually recovering, adding 6.
5 GW in 2017, a slight increase
from 6 GW in 2016.
In Europe, Germany leads with 1.
8 GW of new installed capacity, followed by the UK (950 MW), France (875 MW) and the Netherlands (853 MW).

Turkey grew by 2.
6 GW last year and was included in the Middle East by IEA PVPS
.

However, given the development of the global market, growth remains low
.
In particular, the report's authors point to China's rapid growth, which added 53 GW, India added 9.
1 GW, and other emerging countries
.
As a result, China accounted for more than
half of the global market last year.
After 2011, the distributed photovoltaic system market once again grew significantly for the first time worldwide, from 19 GW of cumulative capacity in 2016 to 38 GW
in 2017.
But the main growth here comes from China
.

Excluding China, global PV installed capacity grew by only 4 GW to 45 GW
last year.
According to the International Energy Agency PVPS, the low global growth rate outside of China provides a different picture
of the global PV market.
For example, the US market fell 28% to 10.
6 GW, and other markets such as Australia (1.
25 GW), South Korea (1.
2 GW), Pakistan (800 MW), Taiwan (523 MW) and Thailand (251 MW), but Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia are also likely to see significant growth
in the coming years.

Despite the recent massive expansion in China, its potential is still huge
.
After all, according to the report, the country currently covers only 3% of its solar electricity needs
.
In the ranking, Honduras accounted for more than 13%, Germany accounted for 7.
5%, Greece accounted for 7.
3% and Italy accounted for 7.
11%.