North America is expected to be the major global market for solar trackers in the upcoming years, while over 750GW of trackers will be installed globally between 2024 and 2030, according to a recent report published by S&P Global.
In the Solar tracker market report 2024, S&P Global said about 60GW of trackers were installed globally in 2023 and over 80GW are expected in 2024. In 2027, more than 100GW of trackers will be installed worldwide; the majority of them coming from North America and the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) markets.
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Overall, 752GW of trackers will be installed between 2024 and 2030. Of this capacity, 39% will be from North America, followed by EMEA (31%), the Asia-Pacific region (22%) and South America (8%).
The North American market is expected to grow to 50GW annual additions by 2030, with the majority of installations in the US. By 2026, installations in the US are forecast to increase to over 40GW. Although the Mexican utility-scale solar PV market has decreased from its historical highs during 2018-2020, its tracker market is expected to grow and exceed 1GW per year from 2028 onwards.
In the EMEA market, tracker installations in Spain are forecast to fall steadily starting from 2025 due to grid connection policies and oversupply. However, the growth in the Middle East will offset the decline in the Spanish market, as large projects are expected to come online between 2028 and 2030 in the region.
The gradual growth in the rest of the European market through 2030 will be partly driven by a modest increase in the attachment rate as countries become more confident in tracker technology. Specifically, countries like Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania could experience a rise in the adoption of solar trackers.
The APAC market will grow significantly from 2023 to 2030 driven by India and China. Last year, APAC’s tracker installations were only about 10GW, but S&P Global predicts that it will grow to 29GW annual additions by 2030. The Chinese market will increase by about 50%, from 6GW to 10GW throughout the forecast period, while the Indian market is forecast to reach 12GW by 2030, driven by both rising attachment rates and increases in utility-scale installations.
Australia is also another market that will experience significant growth in the upcoming years, especially between 2027 and 2028.
Tracker installations in Uzbekistan are set to increase in 2024 thanks to large utility-scale projects coming online in 2024.
Dominating solar tracker companies worldwide
The global tracker industry became less consolidated in 2023, with the top four companies supplying just 59% of trackers to the market. Nextracker was the major tracker manufacturer last year, having supplied 22% of trackers worldwide, followed by Array Technologies (15%), GameChange Solar (12%) and PV Hardware (10%).
In terms of changes in shipments by tracker supplier between 2022 and 2023, Arctech Solar (about 4,500MW), TrinaTracker and Nextracker (both slightly below 3,500MW) were the top three companies that grew the most.
The North American tracker market saw an increase in shipments from 34GW in 2022 to 37GW in 2023. Nextracker (36%), Array Technologies (29%) and GameChange Solar (24%) accounted for 89% of the total tracker shipments. About 98% of the North American market is made up of shipments to the US.
Over 27GW of solar tracker shipments were delivered to the EMEA region, marking a year-over-year growth of 48%. The EMEA market was less consolidated as the top three suppliers only accounted for 50% of the market share. PV Hardware accounted for 29%, followed by Solar Steel (11%) and Nextracker (10%).
In APAC, Arctech Solar’s shares reached 32%, the biggest share in the market. JSolar and Nextracker, ranked second and third, only accounted for 13% and 12% of market shares respectively. However, 17% of the market shares were from multiple solar tracker companies, meaning the market in APAC consisted of small-scale solar PV tracker suppliers.
