Trendforce research division EnergyTrend has issued a new report in which the company claims that Asian market demand is exceeding that of other regions including Europe. The report also predicted that 2014 would see a worldwide recovery for solar power demand, although high stable growth would be most concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region.
According to EnergyTrend research manager Jason Huang, demand has soared in Japan “two or three times” over last year’s figures and China’s subsidy policies targeting 6GW, 10GW and 12GW of solar power generation in 2013, 2014 and 2015 have left the pair as the areas of greatest demand in Asia. Huang’s report noted that this high level of domestic demand in China and Japan is driving the Asian market to the highest growth worldwide.
In the Asia-Pacific region however, stable growth in the region for photovoltaic (PV) energy is primarily coming from Australia and India while the report made the assertion that emerging markets in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have good potential for growth due to their economic development demands coupled with the ample sunlight all four countries enjoy. In addition, the four emerging markets named have implemented feed-in tariff subsidy policies and all four have set renewable energy targets for 2020 to 2030. These and other emerging Asia-Pacific markets will require one to two years to develop, Huang said, predicting that emerging markets in the region will grow at a compound rate of 33.8% annually before 2017.
The company issued the report as it prepared to host ‘PV Forum 2013 – Market Status and Future Development for Solar Power Plants in Asia’, a new event beginning on 31 October 2013. PV Forum 2013 will cover areas including technical barriers, energy storage systems and market outlook.
EnergyTrend expects the solar energy market worldwide to experience continual growth in 2014. The report states that at present around half of global PV demand is made up by China, Japan and the US. Next year will see the aforementioned growth in emerging markets boost the industry and the market in Europe is expected to rebound, according to EnergyTrend which says that “overall, the solar energy market recovery will become increasingly obvious”.
