Photovoltaic Systems Growing: An Update

Abstract

The photovoltaic (PV) technology as the third renewable energy (RE) generation source is growing faster than most of the RE technology due to intense research performed in this field. This last year has seen an important growing of PV technology in efficiency, cost, applications, capacity and economy. The global total solar PV installed capacity in 2018 is dominated by APAC (China included) with 58 % of solar PV installed capacity, follows by Europe (25 %), America (15 %) and MEA (2 %). Even with a decline of 16 % in 2018, the global solar PV market continue to be dominated by China with 44.4 GW installed in 2018 against 52.8 % GW in 2017. The 2018 solar PV outlook market forecast presents a growth of solar market with progressive slow down, from 2019 to 2023 over 5 years. Based on the predictions, the world could centre the Tetrawatts production capacity level by 2021, only 3 years after reaching 0.5 TW level. This paper is an update on the PV systems growing. Detailed summary on the evolution of PV cell structure, energy conversion, efficiency, cost, applications, environmental impact, capacity and economy are presented.