GlobalData: The US Solar PV Market Analysis and Forecasts to 2013 on reports-research.com

June 4, 2009 - PRLog -- The unprecedented growth witnessed by this market is credited to the supportive policy framework of the federal and state governments for the Solar PV technology in collaboration with high-end solar investments by major companies like First Solar, Inc., Solar World AG. The other major reason for the growth can be credited to the state of California which has accounted for 70% of the PV installations in the country. Solar PV market in California has grown rapidly due to the strong policies favoring solar energy initiated by the state government. California has taken up specific campaigns like “Go Solar” encouraging solar power in the state thereby making it the leading solar power generator in the US.

The ongoing financial crisis will not make significant impact on the growth of solar PV industry in the US. The supportive economic incentive programs at federal and state level for solar PV and the extension of the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) program will boost the future development of the US solar PV and drive further investments into the sector. The extension of ITC means that the states in the US can now ramp up efforts like solar loan programs and renewable portfolio standards (RPS) in a big way. This would spark the US solar industry’s move towards more efficient panels and lower costs. In this backdrop, the annual solar PV installations in the country are expected to increase from 280 MW in 2008 to 1515 MW by 2013. The cumulative solar PV installed capacity is expected to reach 5,293 MW by 2013. However, the credit crunch in the US is likely to affect the small players in the solar market who will be finding it difficult to compete given the credit crunch. As a result, the small scale solar companies are expected to be swallowed by the big giants thus leading to consolidation of the US solar industry.

Policies Boosting Grid-Connectivity
The Grid-connected solar PV escalated from 31% of cumulative solar PV installations in 2001 to 61% by 2008. The key to the increase in share of on-grid capacity is mainly due to the incentives provided by the federal and state governments like the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), Feed-in tariff, California Solar Initiative etc. The Cumulative on-grid solar PV accounted for 677 MW in 2008 of which the state of California alone accounts for 468 MW. The other major states with the high cumulative installed capacity are New Jersey (63MW), Nevada (27 MW), Arizona (27 MW), New York (21 MW) and Colorado (21 MW). The states of Michigan announced an ambitious plan popularly known as “45-by-20” target. As part of this plan the state pledged to have 45% of the electricity to be generated by renewable energy by 2020. Washington State introduced a new feed-in tariff program for the development of renewable energy.

The Growth in the US Solar PV Cell Market
The Solar PV cell production in the US has seen a steady increase in volume over the last five years. The US PV cell production has grown from 100 MW in 2001 to reach over 300 MW by 2008 at a CAGR of 15%. The cell production companies in the US are focusing on the next wave of solar PV technologies. Currently, the US accounts for approximately two thirds of global thin-film production. First Solar, Inc. is the leader in terms of solar cell production with the US market share of 40% with a cell production capacity of 140 MW in 2008 followed by United Solar Ovonic, LLC (17%) with 60 MW capacity and Solar World (10%) with 35 MW capacity. Other companies like BP Solar (the US), Evergreen Solar and Schott Solar GmbH have also made their presence felt in the US solar cell market.

The growth in cumulative installed capacity of solar PV with supportive economic incentive programs at federal and state level. This along with increase of activity in cell production signals strong growth prospects of the solar industry in the US.

The GlobalData report provides detailed analysis and forecasts of the global solar photovoltaic market and the US solar photovoltaic market in particular. It also helps in analyzing and forecasting key metrics relating to the installed capacities, market size and growth. It provides information relating to the major solar projects and also the upcoming projects in the US. The report helps to comprehend the solar cell industry and the regulatory framework regarding the solar market in the US. It offers interesting results on the market share of the top manufacturers in the US solar cell industry. Additionally, it also provides ten profiles of the major solar cell companies in the US.

"The US Solar PV Market Analysis and Forecasts to 2013" also provides trends and analysis of investments in the US solar photovoltaic market as well as deal summary and news flow for the last 6 months. On an all, it helps an investor to gauge the market and technological development of the US solar photovoltaic market.

# # #

markt-studie.de, founded in 2002 has emerged as a leading online portal for market surveys and market research in German speaking areas. Four years later the English language portal reports-research.com was introduced due to the extraordinary success of the portal. Again one year later estudio-mercado.es - the Spanish spoken portal - was founded. The objective of the three portals is to competently and efficiently support consultants and decision makers in management, sales and marketing in the search for worldwide market research. Prospective buyers can look into more than 60,000 market surveys from more than 200 international publishers, current market data for more than 6,000 branches worldwide, 10,000 company profiles as well as a free-of-charge research and recommendation service for individual market research.