A study on global solar PV energy developments and policies with special focus on the top ten solar PV power producing countries

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Abstract

The mitigations of global energy demands, climate change and energy related greenhouse gas effects are the most important factors in the modern days. However, renewable energy is one of the alternative sources which has the capacity to mitigate all the above. Among all the renewable energy sources, solar energy is one of the most abundant and the cleanest energy source. Different laboratories of the world have achieved different solar cell efficiencies, which are also discussed in the present paper. This paper presents the global solar PV developments, per capita values, government supportive invectives and policies of the top ten solar power producing countries. This paper also presents the investments of the global solar energy among the countries. Finally, through the study, it is found that these top ten leading countries are following fulfilment of their projections, supportive tariff rates, net metering, green certificates and government incentive policies as their instruments.

Introduction

Energy is a vital factor for the socioeconomic development of any country. About 80% of the world׳s energy demand comes from fossil fuel [1], [2]. However, till date coal is the major source of electricity with sharing of electricity by 42% and continues to be the prime source of electricity in many countries in the coming few decades. The highest levels of electricity will be generated in the non-OECD countries. The generation will be increased by an average of 3.3% per year than the demand of these countries [3]. But, after a few years, it will be impossible to generate electricity from fossil fuels like coal and the others. It is projected that 40% of electricity generation from coal in 2008 will decline to 37% of electricity generation by 2035. This decreasing trend is pressurized for meeting the energy demands specially for our futures. It is predicted that, if the current global energy consumption pattern continues, the world energy consumption will be 50% more by 2030. Again, it is estimated that the large scale industries use nearly about 45–50% of the total energy consumption in the developing countries. The different organizations such as the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Energy Agency (IEA), the World Energy Council (WEC) have given their future energy demands by different projections like for 2020, 2030 and 2050 [4]. The use of fossil fuel could have the capacity in regional, local and environmental challenges. So, a clean energy system has the capacity to neutralize the environmental impacts [5]. That clean energy is renewable energy which could have the capability of meeting the energy demands as well as mitigating the global warming. In the past few years, it has been observed that renewable energy technology is steadily maturing and its share of energy has been going up [6]. By the end of 2012, the renewable energy sources supply is nearly 16.7% of the total energy consumption. It is estmated that by the end of 2012, the total energy shared from renewable energy was about 1470 GW (including hydro) which was up by about 8.5% capacity of the year 2011, whereas hydro power alone shared 990 GW and other renewable energy sources shared 480 GW. Globally, it is estimated that wind energy added more than 39% of the total renewable energy capacity followed by hydro and solar PV each 26% in 2012. By the end of the year 2012, solar PV crossed a big milestone with the total capacity of 100 GW and took its position as the third largest capacity after hydro and wind energy. Renewable energy has produced more than 26% of the total global power generating capacity and it has supplied 21.7% of global electricity, whereas hydro has shared 16.5% of the global electricity. By the end of 2012, the EU-27 countries and BRICS shared the total renewable energy capacities by 210 GW and 128 GW, respectively. The countries like China, USA, Germany, Spain, Italy and India played crucial roles in the global energy markets and they shared the total capacity of renewable energy (not including hydro) by 90 GW, 86 GW, 71 GW, 31 GW, 29 GW and 24 GW, respectively. In the USA, the net electricity generation from renewable energy was 12.5%. At the end of 2012, Germany had consumed electricity up to 22.9% (up from 20.5% in 2011) from renewable energy and it met 12.6% of the energy demand. In Germany, the total power generation of renewable energy was 136 TWh (which was more than 10% of 2011), with the share of 33.8% of wind energy, 30% of biomass, 20.65% of solar PV and 15.6% of hydro energy.

Due to the economic crisis and policy changes, Spain׳s renewable energy addition was slowed down. Spain fulfilled only 32% of the energy demand from renewables, i.e., it decreased from 33% of energy in the year 2011. Similarly, Italy shared 27% of energy demands from renewables. During the period of 2012, India added more than 4.2 GW capacity of renewable energy including 0.7 GW from hydro and the remaining from renewables (mostly from wind), exceeding the total renewable energy capacities by 66 GW. It is estimated that by the end of 2012, India installed 31% of renewable energy (including hydro), and 11% of renewables (non-hydro), respectively. It is expected that India׳s annual clean energy investment will go up by 763% between 2010 and 2020. The BRICS shared 36% of renewable energy (including hydro) and 27% of renewable energy (not including hydro) by the end of 2012. Among these nations, Russia has shared the highest hydro energy, whereas countries like Brazil, India, and particularly China have shared the highest non renewable energy [7].

However, among all renewable energy sources, solar energy is one of the most abundant and the largest potential energy source in the world. The solar radiations reaching the earth׳s surface vary from 0.06 kW/m2 at high latitudes to 0.25 kW/m2 at low latitudes. It is given that the total global ice-free land is around 13,000 MHa, from this theoretically power collected from the solar source is about 21,840 TW. In particular, solar PV possesses a huge potential both in technical and sustainable solutions to the energy demands [8]. Different authors have estimated the technical average power potential of solar PV and some authors have also estimated both present and future solar densities in the global market, which is presented in Table 1 [9].

The rapid falling of the solar cell costs in the past few years has been making energy generation at a widespread rate in the global scenerio. However, the efficiency of solar cell is one of the important factors for stabilizing of the technology. Different laboratories of the world have achieved different efficiencies by using different materials in the period 1975–2010, which is shown in Fig. 1. The figure shows that by using the material GaAs, solar cell efficiency had achieved the highest by about 40% at the end of 2010. The new materials for solar cells, i.e., dye-sensitized and organic base cells were still rated at low efficiency with only 5.4% until 2010. The monocrystalline solar cell had 24.7% efficiency, polycrystalline cells had 20.3% and thin film technology had 19.9% in 2010 [10].

It is projected that the electricity generated from solar energy will be increased to 402 TWh by 2030, while electricity generation from PV will be 280 TWh. It is estimated that during the past five years, the total capacity of solar PV grew with average rates of 60% annually followed by CSP 43% and wind 25% [7].

Section snippets

Global overviews

At the end of 2012, the new added installed global solar PV capacity was nearly about 29 GW, which was one-third of the total global capacity. During the year 2012, the market was fairly stable as compared to 2011. At the end of 2012, global energy invested $244 billion, which was 12% less than investment of 2011 and 8% above the investment of 2010. This decline of investments is due to not supportive policies in Europe and USA. China again dominated for the investments of USD 64.7 billion,

Germany

Germany is one of the leading countries for the development of renewable energy sectors. Since 1974, after the oil crisis, Germany started its renewable energy policy. The important policy RES-E has been introduced in the renewable energy sectors since 1979. This policy has two important features, i.e., regulating of prices or quantity produced and support of the investments in RSE-E capacity. The first climate Enquete Commission recommended a goal to reduce the carbon dioxide and methane gas

Conclusion

In the present paper, the global renewable status, regional renewable energy status as well as country-wise renewable energy status have been analyzed. Among all renewable energy sources , solar energy has a tremendous potential across all the countries and it is the most prominent energy source. Similarly, the solar PV developments at global levels, regional levels and national levels are also discussed. This paper has given the main focus on recent developments of solar energy and the

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