The Photovoltaic Reality Ahead: Terawatt Scale Market Potential Powered by Pico to Gigawatt PV Systems and Enabled by High Learning and Growth Rates

The photovoltaic (PV) energy technology has the potential to contribute to the global energy supply on a large scale. This potential can only be realised if sustainable and highly competitive PV economics are achieved. An integrated economic PV market potential assessment is presented consisting of grid-parity and fuel-parity analyses for the ongrid markets and an amortization analysis for rural off-grid PV markets. All analyses are mainly driven by cost projections based on the experience curve approach and growth rates for PV systems and electricity and fossil fuel prices for the currently used power supply. A total economic PV market potential of 2,800 GW to 4,300 GW is derived for the year 2020. 600 GW to 1,600 GW of cumulated installed PV capacity is estimated for the year 2020, depending on scenario assumptions. Even the low edge of the expected total installed PV capacity exceeds the scenario assumptions of leading energy organizations, such as IEA, by a factor of more than three to five. In conclusion, PV is on its way to become a highly competitive energy technology. Being complementary to wind power, PV together with wind power might become the backbone of the global energy supply in the coming decades.