Spain has started some pretty aggressive incentives for alternative energy use and energy efficiency. New and newly renovated buildings are now required by law to use solar energy via solar hot water or solar photovoltaic installed on-site. This is due to the recent Building Technical Code (CTE – Código Técnico de la Edificación). In addition, there is a strong government subsidy for PV electricity buy-back (up to €0.44/kWh paid for 25 years).
Now, just one year after the codes were put into effect, Spain is poised to pass the USA as the third largest PV manufacturer in the world.1
But, the USA is not standing still either. The USA is growing in PV in California and New Jersey. In addition, Nevada and Colorado have large PV installation projects in progress for the 2007 year. So, the former leader in photovoltaic research and development now finds itself in a race for third place. Hey, this is not the time to get upset about rank. The more players in the PV market, the better!
- Number one is Germany, followed by Japan. Currently, the US market doesn’t actually buy the majority of the PV cells that it manufactures. Instead, industry tends to sell them to the global market. Curious, eh? One might even say, frustrating.