Navigant Research: global market for PV to double to 73.4 GW by 2020

11 November 2013

Navigant Research (Boulder, Colorado, U.S.) has released a new report which predicts that by 2020, electricity from solar photovoltaics (PV) will be competitive with retail electricity prices “in a significant portion of the world”, without subsidies.

“Solar PV Market Forecasts” predicts that annual installations of new PV will more than double to 73.4 GW in 2020. The report also expects a general shift towards “non-distributed” PV systems, with systems smaller than 1 MW accounting for less than half of all installations as early as 2014.

“Lower prices for solar PV modules are opening up new markets for distributed PV, while also helping the technology reach grid parity more quickly in high-cost retail electricity markets,” says Navigant Research Senior Research Analyst Dexter Gauntlett.

“The Asia Pacific region is expected to be the leading regional market for solar PV installations throughout the forecast period, led by China, where more than 100 GW of solar PV will be deployed by 2020.”

The report details policy issues and market drivers for each region, and forecasts average PV installation prices over the period to 2020. It also includes a detailed discussion of key inflection points that will help to shape the PV market.