Will USA overtake Europe in PV?
January 30, 2009
Barack Obama is pledging to double renewable energy production in three years in the USA, and part of this is including solar power. In the White House blog they say that “(ARRP) will put 460,000 Americans to work, with clean energy investments and double the capacity to generate alternative energy over the next three years.”
I wonder how this will shift the balance in the global PV leadership and markets. At the same time European market is probably declining this year, greatly due to the new cap of 500MW in Spain. This cap makes a huge change to the Spanish market, since CNE (Comisión Nacional de la Energía) estimated installations could have been over 3500 MW in 2008. If Spain and the other governments in EU are not responding to the needs of PV industry to allow keeping the momentum, the US will most likely take back the number one PV market position it had before Germany took the bold action to lead.
What I would like to see is an European politician answering to the call of Mr. Obama and say: We will do our outmost to keep this clean and needed PV technology on the growth track while creating 500,000 sustainable jobs on the way, and we will do it now. Can someone show me such a person here in Europe?
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