Article published on www.businessgreen.com on February, 11th 2013
By BusinessGreen staff
New industry figures show 30GW of new capacity installed in 2012, despite slowdown in European market.
Global solar capacity has surpassed 100GW, reducing energy sector CO2 emissions by 53 million tonnes a year, according to new industry figures.
The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) yesterday revealed that cumulative solar PV capacity reached 101GW in 2012, after 30GW of new solar technologies were installed.
Significantly, the figures revealed a shift in the global solar market as emerging economies picked up some of the slack caused by a slowdown in European countries.
However, Europe remained the biggest market, with Germany installing 7.6GW of capacity during 2012. China came in second place in the global league table with 3.5GW of new capacity added, while Italy installed 3.3GW, the US added 3.2GW, and Japan installed 2.5GW.
The UK also completed a record year, installing 1.1GW of capacity, the first time it has deployed more than 1GW in a year.
EPIA said the preliminary figures might be revised up to 32GW of new capacity when it releases its Global Outlook Report in May.
"No one would have predicted even 10 years ago that we would see more than 100GW of solar photovoltaic capacity in the world by 2012," said EPIA president Winfried Hoffmann.
"The photovoltaic industry clearly faces challenges but the results of 2012 show there is a strong global market for our technology. Even in tough economic times and despite growing regulatory uncertainty, we have nearly managed to repeat the record year of 2011."
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