Solar Power for the World: What you Wanted to Know about Photovoltaics

Published in full color, this book describes the industrial revolution associated with the implementation of electric power generation by photovoltaics (PV), the conversion of the Sun’s radiation. It also describes the dramatic events in the industry that happened between 2009 and 2013: hundreds of PV companies in difficulty and the trade war between the EU and China mobilising state leaders on both sides to avoid a serious conflict. The contributing authors are protagonists all over the world who brought PV from its industrial birth in 1954 all the way up to the stormy developments during the first decade of the new century.

Virtually non-existent at the beginning of this century, solar installations worldwide have reached over 100 GW in late 2012. Eventually, in 2012, PV became cheap enough to provide decentralised power to all. In one single year, more solar power capacity was installed globally than nuclear and other types of conventional power. Investments reached hundreds of billions of US dollars, i.e. a multiple of the cost of “Apollo”, which was used to send men on the moon. Over half a million new PV jobs were created despite the financial crisis in the Western economies.

Source: CRC Press