COMPANYNEWS
EPIA announces stellar growth in 2010
IN 2010 solar photovoltaic power (PV) was the leading renewable energy technology in terms of new capacity growth by almost 13,000 MW in Europe.
The energy output of these new PV installations corresponds to the electricity production of two large coal-fired power plants. At the end of 2010, the cumulative installed capacity of PV in the European Union amounted to a total of more than 28,000 MW, with an energy output that equals the combined electrical energy consumption of around 10 million households in Europe.
“The growth of PV has simply been impressive in 2010. Decreasing cost, new applications, strong investor interest and continued political support have contributed to this development, making PV the number one green technology in terms of capacity addition in Europe”, said Ingmar Wilhelm, EPIA President.
“PV has become an established technology, which is contributing to the progressive decarbonisation of our energy mix and which should be further exploited by Member States to reach their 2020 renewable targets”, he continued.
“More than 70 percent of all new installations come from small and medium-sized PV systems. PV is in fact the people’s choice in renewable technologies as they can participate directly and contribute personally to a better environment”, he added.
For the second year in a row, Germany has been the global PV market leader, adding over 6,500 MW of new PV installations and projects to the already existing 9,800 MW of PV systems throughout the country.
For the first time, the yearly PV and soalr installations in Italy and Czech Republic surpassed 1,000 MW. These countries were followed by Belgium, France and Spain in terms of installed PV and solar projects. All three countries which saw very significant volume increases in 2010 reflecting the strong EU market.
Nano crystalline patent
announced
UNITED SOLAR announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent 7,902,049, “Method for depositing high-quality microcrystalline semiconductor materials” to Subhendu Guha, Jeff Yang and Baojie Yan for United Solar.
Supportive policy measures for the further roll-out of PV should continue to play their important roles in the years to come but the subsidy system was never designed to do anything more than stimulate the industry until to enable long term self sufficiency.
It will therefore be crucial across the European continent to design coherent national roadmaps for the development of PV and solar on the way to achieving full competitiveness and cost effectiveness as soon as possible.
Regular, necessary adjustments to the regulatory framework should be announced in due advance and administrative procedures should be simple and transparent”, said Eleni Despotou, EPIA’s acting Secretary General. “These would benefit the predictability of any investment decision and bring substantial cost savings at the same time”, she concluded.
According to the latest EPIA estimates, over 3,000 MW of new PV installations were outside Europe in the year 2010. The main contributors come from Japan, where almost 1,000 MW were installed, followed by the US and China.
The data also show that, despite the huge PV potential especially in the Sunbelt countries, lack of political support still hampers the growth of these markets.
“This is yet another confirmation of the unique and innovative technological processes that United Solar is committed to developing, now and into the future,” said Mark Morelli, President and CEO of Energy Conversion Devices. “The proprietary technology covered in this patent will enable us to achieve our 12% aperture-area conversion efficiency in 2012, as outlined in our technology roadmap.
The direct result of this is that we will be able to harness the sun’s energy in a more cost-effective manner.”
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Earlier this year, the company announced that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), an official U.S.
Department of Energy laboratory, had conducted independent testing and confirmed that United Solar’s Nano- Crystalline technology achieves 12% initial conversion efficiency in a large- area encapsulated cell, a world-record for thin-film silicon solar technology.
United Solar has been awarded nearly 70 United States patents for various technological advancements in its 25- year history.
www.solar-pv-management.com Issue III 2011
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