Photovoltaic (PV) installations will reach 574 GW in 2024 worldwide

BloombergNEF highlights in a new report that developers installed 444 GW of new PV capacity worldwide in 2023. It says new installations could reach 574 GW in 2024, 627 GW in 2025 and 880 GW in 2030.
The world could install up to 574 GW of new PV capacity this year, according to a new global PV outlook report from BloombergNEF. It said new solar installations will reach 444 GW in 2023, significantly exceeding its previous forecast of around 413 GW.

It also expects new global PV installations to reach 627 GW in 2025 and 672 GW in 2026, and then grow further to 718 GW in 2027 and 722 GW in 2028. For 2029 and 2030, it predicts annual PV growth of 820 GW and 880 GW, respectively.

These figures differ substantially from those published by Wood Mackenzie in January. It predicted stable average annual growth over the next eight years, bucking the rapid growth trend of the last decade.

“The challenge in forecasting is that if you keep predicting growth at current rates, you end up predicting that the entire world will be covered in solar panels,” said Jenny Chase, solar analyst at BloombergNEF. “Our 2030 forecast already exceeds 6.7 TW, well above BNEF’s Net Zero scenario and relatively comparable to the global power generation capacity of 8.5 TW by the end of 2022.”
Chase said Portugal and Greece could generate 50% more electricity from photovoltaics by 2030 than in 2022.

“At those levels, we will have negative feedback mechanisms, and that’s what’s really hard to predict,” she added. “Energy will already be very low priced when the sun rises and storage will not be free. So why would anyone build more solar, at least at historic growth rates? That’s what BNEF regional analysts have to deal with.”

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