Street Insider was out with a research note from iSuppli today forecasting big growth in solar leader Germany ahead of the feed-in-tariff reduction in July which will have companies scrambling to complete installations. That’s not too much of a surprise, but the firm also sees significant growth after the tariff reduction, particularly in rooftop solar systems.
They are forecasting 6.6GW of solar installations for 2010 in Germany which is a 70% increase over last year, then another 44% bump in 2011 to 9.5GW. They see the surges in demand taking place this quarter ahead of the tariff cuts and then again in Q4 after a quiet Q3. The 2011 number assumes moderate price drops and attractive investment conditions, but I’m not so sure investment conditions will be all that attractive next year, so we’ll see.
Rounding out the report, they indicate that Italy and France are becoming major solar players, but Germany will remain the world leader. Greece, Bulgaria, Spain and the UK are noted as attractive investments, but that the regulatory environment isn’t yet conducive to big growth. How about the fact that Greece is basically bankrupt? That may put a damper on new investments!
Companies highlighted as benefiting include First Solar (FSLR), Evergreen Solar (ESLR), Germany’s Q-Cells, Suntech Power (STP), Sunpower (SPWRA) and JA Solar (JASO).
This report is excessively optimistic and ignores the effects of the European debt and monetary crisis. It reads like some of the 2000 / 2001 era market research reports for telecom equipment and dotcom markets that forecasted insane growth forecasts that never materialized.