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11.4 PV 2010-2019

The decade where the very large solar farms and the term GW became common!
The global PV industry grew at an average compound annual rate greater than 35%. The Chinese Renewable
Energy Law of 2005 and the investments by the Chinese Government in Renewables during this decade had
the result that in 2018, 73% of the world’s PV manufacturing is by Chinese companies and 42.5.% of modules
installed in 2018 is in China. In technology the Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) and ½-cell modules
are introduced to increase the performance and modules are fast approaching 500W in size. Solar farms kept
increasing in size with the largest being 2.04GW installed in India in 2019. No summary points are provided
for this decade, the following facts and figures is the story of PV for this decade.

In accordance with the IEA Trend reports during the 2010’s
• Annual installations grew from 17GW in 2010 to almost 103GW in 2018.
• Cumulative installed capacity grew from 39GW in 2010 to approximately 512GW in 2018.
• In 2010 off grid systems represented 1% of the annual installations and by 2018 this had decreased to
0.2%.
• In 2010 off grid systems represented 2.8% of the cumulative installed capacity and by 2018 this had
decreased to 0.4%.
• In 2010 Grid connected centralised systems represented 38% (down from 60% a few years earlier) of the
annual installations and by 2018 and it was 58.9%.
• In 2010 Grid connected centralised systems represented 37% of the cumulative installed capacity and by
2018 this had grown to 57%.

Figure 91: : Annual Installed PV Capacity
Source: IEA PVPS 2018 Trends Reports

Note: Off Grid was estimated in the 100-200MW per year and hence why it is not seen on
the above graph

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