Technology and market future prospects of photovoltaic systems

Abstract

During the past 20 years there has been a significant growth of the solar photovoltaic (PV) technology and today is considered by many countries as an important technology for the future. Many countries have already established or are in the process of establishing support programs to encourage the adoption of this new technology following in this way the examples of the major players of the PV market. In this work, an investigation of the technology and market future prospects of PV systems is carried out. In particular the PV key benefits are presented and the various PV solar cell technologies are described and compared. Emphasis has been given to the current and future PV solar systems market demand including their current and future economics. Solar PV has two big challenges that need to be resolved. Production costs need to go down before it becomes economically sustainable, while production capacity must continue to grow in order for PV to become a significant player in the global energy market.