CPV installs to increase 750 percent

March 20, 2014 | By

After years of slow progress, the market for global concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) – which uses lenses or mirrors to focus sunlight onto solar cells -- will undergo a major growth, with its cumulative installed capacity jumping from 357.9 MW in 2014 to 1,043.96 MW by 2020, GlobalData forecasts.

Credit: IHS

Click on image to enlarge. Credit: IHS

Worldwide installations will increase by 750 percent from 2013 to the end of 2020, another researcher, IHS, predicts.

In 2013, China and the United States dominated the global CPV market, with a cumulative installed capacity of 35.4 percent and 33.3 percent, respectively.

"The CPV market is at a nascent stage, especially with the technology evolving and achieving new heights of efficiency improvement. Companies that have been successful in operating CPV prototype systems in pilot sites are now progressing towards multi-MW CPV projects," said Swati Singh, GlobalData's alternative energy analyst. "A further concern in the CPV industry is the reliability and performance of the systems, although significant efforts have been made to develop International Electrotechnical Commission standards for CPV system certification."

CPV technology allows for more efficient PV energy generation, but is also more expensive compared to traditional PV -- a fact that has stymied growth in recent years. That is changing, however, due to advances in technology that will reduce costs.

"What is happening in today's CPV market is very similar to that of the overall PV space in 2007, beset by high costs and an uncertain outlook," said Karl Melkonyan, a photovoltaic analyst at IHS. "However… costs for CPV have dropped dramatically during 2013 and are expected to continue to fall in the coming years. Furthermore, when viewed from the perspective of lifetime cost, CPV becomes more competitive with conventional PV in large ground-mount systems in some regions."

Prices will decrease at an annual compound rate of 15 percent from 2012 to 2017 -- falling to $1.59 by the end of 2017, IHS forecasts.

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