I have to come back to the topic of solar PV once again! According to the Solarbuzz Asia and Pacific Major PV Markets 2010 report, key emerging markets of China, India, South Korea and Australia, together with the long-established Japanese market, contributed 0.9 GW of installations in 2009, or 12 percent of the global demand. There are high hopes in Japan, and of course, China seems to be clearly leading the clean-tech initiatives across Asia Pacific (Apac). In one of my earlier posts, I also mentioned India's NSM and the ambitious targets it has set. Then, of course, there is Korea. And fairly recently, REC was reported to have signed Singapore’s largest solar supplier agreement to date with the Housing Development Board (HDB). Maybe folks in the US will disagree and say there are lot of activities happening in solar in that part of the world. Now I am not quite the right person to judge whether US is leading or does the crown rest with Asia! What I do know is that this part of the world has been quite buoyant, even during the recession. Things did slow down, but not to the extent it happened in other parts of the world. And definitely, things never did slow down that much in India. Coming back to the Apac markets, Solarbuzz's report also states that PV growth in Japan is being stimulated by new government initiatives, especially with the introduction of a Japanese version of a Feed-In Tariff (FIT). China, which also seems to be leading in clean-tech investments, is said to have achieved 228 MW in 2009, a 552 percent growth year-on-year. Closer home, in India, there is lot of interest in grid-connected solar PV. Of course, what folks would do well by not overlooking is the huge rural market and off-grid applications. This report correctly points out India’s off-grid rural segment as the largest PV market segment in India. In Australia, the residential market has been driving PV growth. Korea has been the only place to miss out in all of this with a reported drop in market share. However, given the Korean resiliency, it is bound to bounce back, sooner, rather than later. Pradeep
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