Snapshot of photovoltaics – February 2022

For the past 10 years, photovoltaic electricity generation has been the fastest-growing power generation source worldwide. It took almost six decades to achieve 100 GW of solar energy capacity in 2012, but the 1 TW barrier is likely to be broken during 2022. Overall investments in solar energy has increased by 19% to USD 205 billion (EUR 171 billion). In 2021, more than 165 GW of new solar photovoltaic electricity generation capacity was installed. The recovery of China, the continuous growths in Europe and the USA as well as new emerging markets were the main drivers. The number of countries installing more than 1 GW annually has increased to 18 in 2021. The continuation of price reductions in the battery storage sector has again resulted in a growing market for local battery storage systems in solar farms as well as decentralised photovoltaic electricity generation systems. Apart from classic electricity use, renewable electricity for the generation of green hydrogen will become more and more important in the future.

JAEGER-WALDAU Arnulf; 

2022-05-23

EDP Sciences

JRC128395

2105-0716 (online),   

www.epj-pv.org/articles/epjpv/full_html/2022/01/pv220006/pv220006.html,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128395,   

10.1051/epjpv/2022010 (online),