The usual suspects of China, Japan and the U.S. remain the key solar markets in 2016, together accounting for 60% of global solar demand. While well below years of phenomenal growth in 2008 and 2010, Mercom Capital forecasts growth of 28% in total market size in 2015.
Looking at individual markets, Mercom is optimistic that China will reach its extremely ambitious 17.8 GW goal in 2015, noting that the lack of a specific distributed generation target within the top line goal is a positive sign.
We are revising our forecast upwards since our previous update due to positive news coming out of China along with revised installation goals, said Raj Prabhu, CEO and Co-Founder of Mercom Capital Group.
Japan is forecast to see 10 GW of solar installed. The U.S. will see 8.8 GW go in, as the rush to beat the 2016 Investment Tax Credit (ITC) deadline.
On the less positive note, Mercom expects Germany to install only 1.3 GW this year, with the 400 MW installed in through to April, down from 622 MW the previous year. Mercom notes that Germanys first large scale auction, for 150 MW of projects, was four times oversubscribed and that prices came in slightly higher than the FIT.
2015 is expected to be the strongest year for the UK solar market, with Mercom expecting around 3 GW of capacity to be added.
The Mercom forecast comes the same week as GTM Research published its prediction of around 55 GW of solar to be installed globally. The PV Market Alliance delivered its forecast of 50 GW to be installed in 2015 last week at Intersolar Europe.
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