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A Snapshot of Global PV Markets - The Latest Survey Results on PV
Markets and Policies from the IEA PVPS Programme in 2018
Gaëtan Masson1, Izumi Kaizuka2, Johan Lindahl3, Arnulf Jaeger-Waldau4, Gregory Neubourg1, José
Donoso6, Francesca Tilli7
1 IEA PVPS Task 1, Belgium – g.masson@iea-pvps.org; +32 2 514 78 05
2 RTS Corporation, Japan
3 Becquerel Sweden, Sweden
4 EC JRC, Belgium
6 UNEF, Spain
7 GSE, Italy
Abstract — The objective of this paper is to propose a reliable
and accurate perspective on key markets and policies related to
PV development in 2018 and previously. It aims at offering a
clear analysis of how PV markets have developed in 2018, with
updated numbers, along with analysis of the policies behind the
development. . In this paper are displayed and analyzed survey
results for the calendar year 2018 concerning PV markets and
policies, as well as other key issues. An increasing number of
national markets experienced notable growth in 2018 with
impacts on policy development. Figures show that close to 100
GW of PV systems have been installed in the world last year.
Consequently, cumulative capacity crossed the 500 GW mark in
2018, or half a TW.
I. INTRODUCTION
This snapshot paper gives information on the development
of PV power applications in the PVPS member and non-
member countries and is largely based on the information
provided by the 27 IEA PVPS countries plus the European
Union through its European Commission. The report
includes information on national market developments and
comments about the most important changes and trends in PV
support policies at the end of the former year, in this case
2018. The International Energy Agency – Photovoltaic
Power System Programme (IEA PVPS)’s Task 1 is
responsible for strategy and outreach within the IEA PVPS
program. This includes market and industry analysis. A key
deliverable of Task 1 is the annual Snapshot of Global PV
Markets publication, together with the annual flagship report
Trends in PV Application .
The objective of the series of annual Snapshot and Trends
reports — which have been published since 1992 (Trends)
and 2013 (Snapshot) — is to present and interpret
developments in both the PV systems and components being
used in the PV power systems market and the changing
applications for
these products within that market. These trends are analyzed
in the context of the business, policy and non-technical
environment in the reporting countries.
II. THE GLOBAL PV INSTALLED CAPACITY
This paper presents the latest survey results for the calendar
year 2018 concerning PV markets and policies, as well as
other key issues. An increasing number of national markets
experienced notable growth in 2018, and that impacted the
policy development. While the final figures for 2018 will
continue to be refined in the coming months, preliminary
figures show that around 100 GW of PV systems have been
installed in the world last year.
Some important trends observed are as follows:
• The global PV market grew marginally to at least
99.8 GW in 2018, compared to around 98.9 GW in
2017.
• The market in Europe is growing again after the
decline in 2016 and a stabilization in 2017. Passing
from 6.2 GW of installed capacity in the previous
year to around 9.4 GW in 2018.
• The Asian market represented slightly less than 70%
of the global market, a decrease in 2018 as
compared to 2017.
• This year again, China took the first place, but its
market contracted from 53.0 GW in 2017 to 45.0
GW in 2018, ahead of India (10.8 GW) which has
caught up with the USA (10.6 GW). The first
European country ranked is Germany with 3.0 GW
installed.
• Japan ranked fourth, with around 6.5 GW annual
installed capacity. And other markets increased
spectacularly in 2018, especially in Australia, with
close to 3.8GW, Mexico with close to 2.7 GW,
South Korea with 2.0 GW.
Preprint Proceedings of the 46th IEEE PVSC
Chicago, 17 - 21 June 2019, USA
• In the top 10 countries, there are 2 European
countries (Germany and the Netherlands), 5 Asia-
Pacific countries (China, India, Japan, Australia and
South Korea), 1 country from Middle East and
Africa (Turkey) and 2 countries in the Americas
region (USA and Mexico).
• 32 countries had at least 1 GW of cumulative PV
systems capacity at the end of 2018 and 10 countries
installed at least 1 GW in 2018.
III. MARKET DEVELOPEMENT
In 2018, the PV market again broke several records by
reaching the 100 GW, but its global expansion slowed down.
The limited decline of the Chinese PV market in 2018, was
compensated with larger installation volumes outside of
China (Fig. 1).
Together with China and India, as well as many other
countries growing as established markets in the region, Asia
remains the leader of the Global PV market. Next to China
and India, Japan remains a relevant presence in the global
market with 6.5 GW installed, even if its market slightly
decreased compared to 2017.
Other Asian markets such as Taiwan or Malaysia have
confirmed their maturity by experiencing a growth in 2018
while the development in other markets such as Thailand,
Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, has been intermittent
over the years.
In the Americas, the US market remained stable (10.6 GW)
Mexico — that installed at least 2.7 GW in 2018 — has
largely compensated the decline of Brazil, which installed 1.0
GW in 2017 and less than 400 MW in 2018. Chile installed
461 MW; a decline compared to the 657 MW in 2017.
Canada experienced a new market decline in 2018, as the
market went down to 100 MW in 2018 as compared to 249
MW in 2017.
In Europe, Germany confirmed its leading position among
the continent and installed 3.0 GW in 2018. The Netherlands
with 1.3 GW, was the major happening of the year, followed
by France still below the GW mark. Other countries in
Europe experienced interesting developments but at a lower
level: Ukraine (700MW), Hungary (400 MW) and Belgium
(405 MW). Italy (435 MW) and Spain (374 MW) both made
small comebacks after years of almost complete market
absence. The UK went down to a very low level as compared
with its second rank on the European market in 2017. Some
medium-size markets remained stable, such as Switzerland
(260 MW) and Austria (153 MW). In the Nordic countries,
Sweden (160 MW), Denmark (91 MW), Finland (59 MW)
and Norway (23 MW), saw a growth of their PV markets
compared to 2017.
In the Middle East, Israel installed an additional 432 MW,
the highest installation rate in years. Morocco installed 591
MW, while plans are being made for significantly more.
Several other countries in the region experienced a rapid
growth and hundreds of MW installations, which will mostly
be connected in 2019.
In Africa, South Africa became the first African country to
install close to 1 GW of PV in 2014, but the market has
declined significantly since then, as only 60 MW were
installed in 2018. Projects have popped-up a bit everywhere,
but few countries have actually installed significant amounts
in 2018.
Overall, the decision of China to constrain its market lead
to component’s price decreases driven by the fear of a
declining market, which contributed to accelerate the PV
deployment at the end of 2018 and resulted in partially
stabilizing the market.
In the year 2018, 10 countries passed the GW mark with
respect to the annual installed PV capacity. Eight countries
now have more than 10 GW of total capacity installed, four
have more than 40 GW and China alone represented 176.1
GW. Germany, which used to lead the rankings for years, lost
its leading position in 2015 and now ranks fourth (45.4 GW),
the USA second (62.2 GW) and with Japan third (56.0 GW).
With more than 120.4 GW of total capacity, Europe is now
significantly behind the Asian leader that runs at least 294.1
GW, and much more to come in the coming years.
IV. GRID CONNECTED CENTRALIZED AND
DISTRIBUTED
Regarding the share of the grid connected grid connected
and centralized installations at regional level, the trend
changed a lot over the years. From 2008 to 2012, the region
with the highest share of grid connected centralized
installations was Europe which was holding 80% of the
utility-scale system installed globally. Starting form 2012,
the share of American and Asian countries started to grow
Fig. 1 Evolution of annual PV installations (MW –- DC).
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20
40
60
80
100
120
GWp
IEA PVPS Countries Non IEA PVPS Countries European Union
USA Japan China
Preprint Proceedings of the 46th IEEE PVSC
Chicago, 17 - 21 June 2019, USA
until the end of 2013, when Asia became the main region for
utility-scale projects.
Fig. 2. Segmentation of PV installation 2011 – 2018.
During the last 5 years, the market has seen a strong
development of grid connected centralized installations
rather than distributed ones, as Fig. 2 illustrates. Before 2013,
the majority of PV installations used to be grid connected
distributed. This changing trend is due to the fact that
centralized PV has evolved faster, e.g. in terms of cost, and
most of the major PV development in emerging PV markets
are coming from utility-scale PV. The success of utility scale
installations is mainly coming from the fact that the
installation time and cost per Wp for utility scale are lower
than for distributed PV plants. Moreover, as mentioned
above, most of installed capacity in emerging PV markets is
the result of calls for tender. In the last years, PV electricity
prices are converging towards lower prices and this is making
PV electricity even more attractive in some regions.
Moreover, tenders offer the most competitive solution on
electricity price due to the necessity to compete with low
wholesale electricity price. The increasing number of tenders
organized stimulated the installation of utility scale projects
by stimulating competition. This has been one of the main
aspects that has characterized the market in the past years,
and it has strongly contributed to increasing the share of
utility-scale installations on the market. Nevertheless, the
utility-scale market did grow in 2018, but not as fast as in the
previous years. The distributed PV market declined
compared to 2017 but, is still largely above the levels seen in
between 2011 and 2016, mostly thanks to policies
implemented in China. In the same way, the market has
started to diversify, with floating PV adding to utility-scale
and BIPV starts to complement BAPV in the built
environment. Other emerging segments such as agricultural
PV or PV integrated in vehicles are showing the potential for
further diversification of PV components, but their current
levels remain too low to be considered in this paper.
V. ELECTRIC VEHICLES
The electrification of transport accelerated in many
countries; and almost all of which are active in the IEA PVPS
programme. The link between PV development and EVs is
not straightforwardly understood yet, but it is simply
becoming a reality. Charging electric vehicles during peak
load hours implies to rethink power generation, while
concepts such as virtual self-consumption could rapidly
provide a framework for rapid PV development. The
accelerated development of the EV market could be
compared to the development of the PV market, as shown in
Fig. 3. With more than 2 million electric vehicles sold in 2018
(or 2.2% if the global car market), the penetration of EVs is
following a trend that is even faster than the one of PV.
Fig. 3. Comparison between PV penetration and EV penetration.
VI. ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION
Fig. 4. National PV penetration in % of the electricity demand
based on 2018 capacities.
The electricity production from PV per country as shown in
Fig. 4 estimates what the PV production could be based on
the cumulative PV capacity at the end of 2018; close to
optimum siting, orientation and average weather conditions.
These numbers should therefore be considered as indicative,
aiming at comparing different situations in different countries
rather than official data. In several countries, the PV
contribution to the electricity demand has passed the 5%
mark with Honduras in the first place with almost 14%.
Germany is second with an estimated 7.9% and Greece third
with a theoretical penetration level of 7.5%. India reached the
5.4% mark and China reached 3.3% in 2018. In total, PV
contribution amounts to close to 2.6% of the world’s
electricity demand in the world.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
GWp
ROOFTOP UTILITY SCALE
0,0%
0,1%
0,2%
0,3%
0,4%
0,5%
0,6%
0,0%
0,5%
1,0%
1,5%
2,0%
2,5%
3,0%
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
EV Penetration
PV Penetration
PV PENETRATION EV PENETRATION
4,3%
4,5%
4,7%
5,4%
6,3%
6,8%
7,1%
7,3%
7,5%
7,9%
14,0%
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16%
EU
Israel
Belgium
India
Australia
Japan
Chile
Italy
Greece
Germany
Honduras
Preprint Proceedings of the 46th IEEE PVSC
Chicago, 17 - 21 June 2019, USA
parts)
Fig. 5. Evolution of regional PV installations (GW-DC)
VII. CONCLUSIONS
This brief overview of the situation of the PV market and
its deployment in 2018 shows that global PV market is, more
than ever, dominated by a few leading countries. However,
many new PV markets are developing on all continents, at
different paces. Also, in spite of the multiplication of PPA’s
through competitive tenders and the decreasing costs of PV
systems, which stand today at an unprecedented low-level,
the market remains strongly influenced and led by incentives.
Finally, it was observed that the decision by China to
constrain its market did not disrupt the PV market but limited
its growth.
REFERENCES
Key data for this publication were drawn mostly from
national survey reports (up to 2017) and information
summaries, which were supplied by representatives from
each of the reporting member countries of IEA PVPS (for
2018 data). These national survey reports and the annual
Snapshots can be found on the website www.iea-pvps.org.
Information from the countries outside IEA PVPS are drawn
from a variety of sources and, with every attempt made to
ensure their accuracy.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
GWp
AsiaPacific America Europe MEA&A RoW
Preprint Proceedings of the 46th IEEE PVSC
Chicago, 17 - 21 June 2019, USA