IMS Research says solar installations could reach 10GW in 2010

Apr 13, 2010 - Mark Osborne - .pv-tech.org

Having forecasted that global PV installations would actually grow in 2009 despite the fact that’s its forecast was issued in early 2009 when barely 2.8MW was installed in Germany for January of that year, IMS Research now expects global installation could reach 10GW in 2010, despite changes to the German feed-in tariff. Strong demand is coming from many different countries, according to the research firm.
“An incredible 1.5 GW of new capacity was installed in Germany in December,” noted Ash Sharma, PV Research Director at IMS Research. “This was earlier predicted by IMS Research which measured inverter shipments at 3.5 GW in Q4’09, and also predicted that the global PV market grew by 25% to exceed 7 GW.”

IMS Research feels very proud of itself for highlighting that it was one of only a small number of research firms that had forecasted growth for 2009 and that such growth would be in the 20% plus range.

Almost 7.5GW of new PV capacity was added worldwide in 2009 according to latest confirmed results from IMS Research.

“Despite many in the industry predicting a much smaller market size in 2009, with some even stating the market had declined, IMS Research, which analysed multiple parts of the PV supply chain previously predicted this strong growth,” added Sharma. “As such, it still stands by its prediction that the PV market – in terms of both shipments of modules and inverters and new installed capacity grew at a double-digit rate in 2009 to exceed the 7GW mark.”