cephalotus wrote:joe1347 wrote:2. BP knows something that the rest of us don't. German subsidies are certainly driving demand for photovoltaics. Has BP heard through it's sources that Germany will start scaling back the subsidies? Hence, photovoltaic demand will fall in the not too distant future.
"Subsidies" in Spain (probably the biggest PV market in 2008) have been cut significantly, but the Germany EEG has been renewed for another four years (with PV feed in tarifes decreasing around -9% per year of installation)
Thanks. Here's a breakdown by country for 2007. Couldn't find a similar chart for 2008.
From two articles, it looks like Spains annual demand will
drop by
700 MW from 1200 MW to 500MW in 2009.
That would keep Germany as the world leader but implies growth of just 150 megawatts, or not nearly enough to offset an expected drop of 700 megawatts in Spanish demand.
The government in Spain said in 2009 will make smaller cuts on subsidies for new photovoltaic solar developments than originally planned, Energy Secretary Pedro Marin said Tuesday.
A proposal to reign in subsidies for next year will put a cap of 500 megawatts for photovoltaic solar energy projects that are entitled to subsidies, and not a cap of 300 MW as the government had planned earlier, he said.
Continuing on in the
article, it's suggested that the business dropoff from Spain will be compenstated by grow in other Markets.
"That sort of growth you could almost say it's compensating entirely for the slowdown in sales into Spain," said Steve Chan, chief strategy officer at Suntech Power Holdings, a Chinese manufacturer of solar panels.
Hence, Spain cutting back on their subsidies doesn't seem to be a reason why BP Solar would cancel their expansion plans. Other
articles also project fairly high growth in the near future for PV.
As for the earlier observation regarding USA subsidies and the influence of the price of oil (on PV sales). Given the USA's small percentage of worldwide annual PV sales, it's difficult to believe that the USA can have much of an impact.
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." Homer Simpson