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

In the past, solar energy applications in the Asia Pacific and Central Asia regions were mainly concentrated in solar lighting and residential areas, "said Han Qiming, an analyst at NPD Solarbuzz." However, in the future, solar energy demand will come from the widespread use of large ground power plants. By 2017, the number of ground 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 is still highly dispersed, and similar to other emerging solar markets, it has diverse policies and various end market drivers. Due to Southeast Asia being widely regarded as a central hub for upstream manufacturing of the solar energy industry, policy makers have a deep understanding of solar power generation, and therefore have also drawn on the mature experience of European photovoltaic market policy development in the policy-making process.

The demand for solar energy in the Asia Pacific and Central Asia region mainly comes from Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan, China, China. From 2013 to 2017, it is expected 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, driven by rapid growth in electricity demand and fiscal pressures to reduce energy imports.

Indonesia has formulated a long-term plan for solar power generation, aiming to increase the energy proportion of solar power to 0.3% by 2025, which is approximately 1 GW of new solar energy demand; With the upcoming implementation of grid connected electricity prices, Indonesia will become the second largest solar market in Southeast Asia by 2017; Taiwan, China, China and South Korea also list solar power as the priority of renewable energy.

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

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

(Source: Internet)