The list, produced by Wiki-Solar, ranks the worlds leading owners and operators of large-scale solar plants defined by solar generation experts Wiki-Solar as installations over 10 megawatts.
Top of the list since 2010 is the French electricity company EDF; while the Californian utility Pacific Gas and Electric also has a portfolio of assets under its Utility Owned Generation Program. But the list includes a greater number of independent power producers (IPPs) such as NRG Energy, Canadas Enbridge and Italys Rete Rinovabile (RTR). Other prominent players are pure financial investors, including Warren Buffets MidAmerican Energy Holdings; and solar project developers, who retain a portfolio of their own completed projects, like Enerparc, Saferay and AES Solar.
The top twenty owners ranked by the capacity of their 10MW+ installations are:EDF Energie Nouvelle, Enerparc, NRG Energy, Altira, Enbridge, Commerz Real, Rete Rinovabile (part of Terra Firma Capital), Saferay, MidAmerican Energy, Consolidated Edison Development, CEZ Group, AES Solar, LHI, Luxcara, First Reserve Energy Infrastructure Fund, Pacific Gas & Electric, Nobesol, Blue Forrest Solar Holdings, Renovalia, and Natural Energy Development.
Solar power generation is the fastest-growing sector of the global electricity market, says Wiki-Solars Philip Wolfe, and is attracting a broad range of investors. The top twenty owners we are listing today include utilities, IPPs, developers and investors who together own over 30% of the 8.3GW of capacity on our database.
It will be interesting to see if other utilities follow EDF and PG&E into this sector, especially after recent reports that the German utilities, which have been sceptical about renewable energy investments, are starting to lose control of their markets."
The risers and fallers in the list partly reflect the geographical changes to the market reported last month, with the leading investors in Spains 2008 solar boom now slipping down the list, said Wolfe.
