28 March 2014: The International Energy Agency Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA-PVPS) has released the second edition of its report titled ‘Snapshot of Global PV.’ The report provides information about new and existing installations of PV in different countries, and discusses major regulatory challenges, such as policy incentives for continued deployment and support for integrating utility-scale PV into existing systems.

According to IEA, 2013 saw the installed global capacity of solar PV reach roughly 136 GW, to provide about 0.85% of electricity demand worldwide. The highest penetration of PV was in Germany, Italy and Greece, which have enough capacity to generate 6.2%, 7.8% and 5.8% of their electricity demands respectively. Germany remained the country with the highest installed PV capacity at 35.5 GW, followed by China at 18.3. In all, 17 countries have an installed solar PV capacity of at least 1 GW.

New PV installations of at least 36.9 GW were connected to the grid in 2013, with China adding 11.3 GW, more than any other country. While solar and wind together contributed 24 GW of China’s 90 GW in new capacity, coal and hydro in China accounted for more, at 40 GW and 25 GW respectively. Solar PV was the biggest source of new power generation in Japan, and the second biggest in Europe. Nine countries installed at least 1 GW in new PV capacity. [Publication: Snapshot of Global PV]