I was dimly aware that Spain had, up until 2008, one of the most generous feed in tariff laws for grid connected solar systems, both photovoltaic and thermal. What I did not know was that Spain, as small and as lightly populated as it is, represented fully 42% of the world market for solar PV in 2008. When the country recognizes the costs of its program and changed its laws to limit the quantity of solar installations that qualify for the generous subsidy, the solar PV industry experienced a rather extreme contraction whose implications are still being digested. Here is a video with interviews of booth participants at Intersolar North America a recent convention for the solar industry held in San Francisco from July 13-15 2009.
Update: I have removed the embedded video because it began playing automatically as soon as the Atomic Insights page was loaded in a browser. Here is the link to the video instead – Challenges for Solar PV Industry
In case you are interested, the feed in tariff that caused a mad rush by the solar industry to supply systems in Spain was 45 euro cents per kilowatt hour at the start of 2008. The new, revised rate, which is still generating interest by a shrinking and stressed industry is 34 euro cents per kilowatt hour for rooftop systems and 32 euro cents per kilowatt hour for ground mounted systems.
