South Africa and China Boosting Global Concentrated Photovoltaic Market by 2020

Global Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) installed capacity will increase more than fourfold from 282.5 Megawatts (MW) in 2014 to reach 1.3 Gigawatts (GW) by 2020, across the seven major markets of the US, China, South Africa, Australia, Portugal, Italy and Spain, according to research and consulting firm GlobalData.

Harshavardhan Reddy Nagatham, GlobalData’s Analyst covering Power, says: “South Africa’s climatic conditions are highly suited to CPV technology, due to high Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) rates throughout most of the country and the availability of vast expanses of land.

“South Africa’s first CPV plants were commissioned in 2010 and had a combined capacity of 0.2 MW, but the country now has the world’s third-largest installed CPV capacity, despite only having an installed Photovoltaic capacity of 1.5 GW.”

While GlobalData forecasts that South Africa’s CPV installed capacity will hit 193.3 MW by 2020, China will lead the world with 582.3 MW by the end of the forecast period.

Nagatham continues: “China remains the fastest growing CPV market in the world, high DNI concentration levels in the western part of the country combined with China's manufacturing capacity, has made it home to the largest existing CPV plants and the highest number of upcoming large-scale plants.

“The government has targeted 100 GW of installed solar capacity by 2020, but there has been speculation that the target will be revised to 200 GW. While only a small portion of this upcoming capacity would be in the form of CPV installations and the rest would be regular PV installations, China would still represent a major part of the global installed CPV capacity in 2020,” the analyst concludes.