Pakistan and Saudi Arabia achieved biggest installed capacity of Solar PV

BEIJING, March 1 (DNA): In the Asian market, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia achieved biggest installed capacity of Solar PV with market shares of 7.1% and 6.8% respectively.

It was stated at the Photovoltaic Industry 2024 Development Retrospect and 2025 Situation Prospect Seminar hosted by the CPIA on February 27.

“In 2024, China’s photovoltaic industry faces a series of challenges, whereas the new installed capacity still exceeds expectations, which could be described as challenges and opportunities coexist,” noted Wang Bohua, Honorary Chairman of China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), in his keynote address at the Seminar.

Titled retrospect and prospect, the seminar demonstrated the overall development of China’s PV industry in the past year, as well as possible trends for the new year in extenso.

“In 2024, our PV newly installed capacity was 277.57 GW, which is a year-on-year leap of 28.3%, among which the monthly installed capacity in December reached 71.27GW, setting a record high for new installed capacity in a single month.

Overall, as of 2024, our cumulative installed PV capacity has reached 885.68 GW,” Wang introduced.

“However, blind optimism means the prelude of failure. What we also need to distinguish is that in the same year, China’s total exports of photovoltaic products amounted to USD 32.02 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 33.9%.

It could be said that the shuffle has begun. Survival of the fittest is accelerating.

All parties need to assess the situation to take advantage of the trend.”

“A coin has two sides. Affected by trade barriers and changes in the overseas industrial landscape, silicon wafer exports were 60.9GW, down 13.3% year-on-year, but battery cell and module exports reached 57.5GW and 238.8GW, up 46.3% and 12.8% year-on-year respectively,” Wang pointed out.

At a macro level, the PV industry maintains mushrooming, and a consensus has been reached that global renewable energy installed capacity will triple in 2030, and China is leveraging the advantages of entire industrial chain to further expand green production capacity development on a global scale.

In 2024, China’s PV module export regions will continue to develop in a diversified manner, with the export value of PV modules to 23 countries increasing by more than USD10 million, and the export value of modules to 33 countries increasing by more than 100%, with the top ten markets in terms of module export value maintained a share of 62%, and the number of markets with export volume exceeding 1GW increased from 29 in 2023 to 38 in 2024.

In addition, based on the fact that the global photovoltaic market size has reached 530GW in 2024, a year-on-year increase of approximately 35.9% and that major markets will maintain a growth rate of more than 15%, CPIA optimistically predicts that the global PV market will maintain a scale of 531-583GW in 2025, and new installed capacity will increase by 10% year-on-year.

So far, various institutions have successively raised their global installation forecasts, remaining optimistic about the global market prospects.

CPIA pointed out that emerging markets are small in scale but have initial growth potential due to their rapid growth in electricity demand and great potential for renewable energy.

For instance, Saudi Arabia has proposed to add 20GW of solar capacity each year starting in 2024, the UAE has proposed to increase the proportion of clean energy in the total energy structure to 50% by 2050, Pakistan has emphasized that renewable energy will account for 30% of the energy structure by 2030, and African countries including South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, and Nigeria have all proposed to increase the proportion of renewable energy to between 30% and 42% by 2030.

As to China, the association forecasted new PV capacity addition of 215-255 GW this year, with consumption and demand for solar energy projected to remain high and steady in the coming years.

“With continuous breakthroughs in PV technology and more diversified export market, renewable energy generation is predicted to play a dominant role in the power generation landscape by 2030,” Wang added.