The latest report on emerging solar markets in Asia-Pacific and Central Asia released by NPD Solarbuzz indicates that the demand for solar power generation in the emerging Asia-Pacific and Central Asia region is expected to exceed 3GW by 2017, showing a very strong growth compared to the 723MW demand in 2012, with a compound annual growth rate as high as 28%.

In the past, the application of solar energy in the Asia-Pacific and Central Asia regions was mainly concentrated on solar lighting and residential areas. Han Qiming, an analyst at NPD Solarbuzz, said, "But in the future, solar energy demand will come from the extensive use of large ground-mounted power stations." By 2017, ground-mounted installations will account for 64% of the total solar power generation in the Asia-Pacific and Central Asia regions.

The demand for solar power generation in the Asia-Pacific and Central Asia regions remains highly fragmented, and similar to other emerging solar markets, it is characterized by diverse policies and various terminal market drivers. As Southeast Asia is widely regarded as the central hub for upstream manufacturing in the solar energy industry, policymakers have a relatively in-depth understanding of solar power generation. Therefore, in the process of policy formulation, they have also drawn on the mature experience of policy development in the European photovoltaic market.

The demand for solar energy in the Asia-Pacific and Central Asia regions mainly comes from Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan, China. From 2013 to 2017, it is estimated that the solar energy demand in these five countries will account for 50% of the total demand.

Thailand is expected to become the largest single market in the region, mainly driven by the rapid growth of electricity demand and the financial pressure to reduce energy imports.

Indonesia has formulated a long-term solar power generation plan, expecting to increase the proportion of solar power generation in energy to 0.3% by 2025, which is approximately 1GW of new solar demand. Thanks to the upcoming on-grid electricity price, Indonesia will become the second-largest solar energy market in Southeast Asia by 2017. Taiwan of China and South Korea have also listed solar power generation as a priority choice for their renewable energy targets.

In the coming years, the demand for solar energy in more countries in the Asia-Pacific and Central Asia regions will increase. At the end of 2012, the Philippines announced solar cumulative installation projects with a capacity of over 500MW, mainly from strong investments in Japan and South Korea. Bangladesh is already the world's largest off-grid solar market and plans to install an additional one million solar power systems by the end of 2016. Kazakhstan plans to install 77MW of solar power stations in the coming years. Pakistan has also announced that it will deploy 500MW of solar power.

Although ensuring sufficient financing for solar power projects remains a challenge, the overall solar power demand in Asia-Pacific and Central Asia is expected to account for 5% of the global total in 2017, reaching 5GW. Han Qiming added.

(Source: Internet)