With insights from Australian experts and local PV data captured by the APVI, the 2023 ‘Trends in Photovoltaic Applications’ has been released by the IEA PVPS.
This report provides a comprehensive overview of the global PV sector, covering policies, drivers, statistics, and industry.
In 2022, Australia once again reached the highest installed PV capacity per inhabitant with 1,169 W/cap (up 15% on 2021), while the global cumulative installed capacity achieved a +24.9% year on year growth.
Professor Renate Egan, who recently stepped down as Australia’s IEA PVPS Executive Committee representative, reflects on her nearly 10 years of participation:
“Australia has remained in the top ten countries for every year of the last ten years, and for a decade before that, by both new installations and total installed installed capacity. This is a benchmark we can be proud of and is reflected once more in the highest installed solar per capita.”
Australia’s PV Market – Leadership at Risk
However in 2022, Australia saw a drop in total installed PV to 4.2 GW, down from 4.9 GW of PV in 2021. This slow down in large scale solar installations was largely due to grid-connection challenges and delays in planning and consents and according to Professor Egan, “puts our PV leadership at risk, as well as our progress towards our net-zero targets.“
Professor Egan continues, “We need a national ambition and co-ordination between states to continue to deliver on our strong solar history, and to open up new opportunities in local manufacturing, in green steel, green ammonia and green hydrogen.”
Globally, the five leading individual countries (China, USA, India, Brazil and Spain) represented around 69% of all installations recorded in 2022, while the top 10 markets cover around 81% of the 2022 annual world market, a sign that the growth of the global PV market has been driven by a limited number of countries yet again.
Distribution and the Prosumer
The report notes that the development of the prosumer market (consumers producing part or all of their own electricity consumption) can remove pressure on financial incentives and, in parallel, reduce demand on grid capacity. This means if the market conditions are favourable and the market regains confidence, self-consumption can become a market driver for the distributed segment.
In 2022, Australia ranked 5th in countries for cumulative distributed PV installed capacity (19.59 GW) and 9th for distributed PV installed in 2022 (2.83 GW) and is one of the few countries where the distributed segment is driving overall market growth.
Around the world, the distributed market grew to 115 GW, up from 80 GW in 2021. In 2022, countries where the distributed segment is driving overall market growth includes Brazil, Australia, Germany, Poland and Sweden.
