Renewable Distributed Energy Generation Market to Hit $154 Billion by 2015

The Renewable distributed energy generation market, which includes both distributed solar photovoltaics  and small wind power, will experience strong growth over the next several years, with total system revenues increasing from $50.8 billion in 2009 to $154.7 billion by 2015, according to Renewable Distributed Energy Generation, a new report from Pike Research. During this period, annual RDEG capacity additions will increase from 5.9 gigawatts in 2009 to 15.1 GW in 2015, painting RDEG as an emerging mode of operations that is a growing alternative to the traditional centralized power generation infrastructure.

“The economics of sub-utility scale renewable energy continue to improve at a rapid pace,” says Pike senior analyst Peter Asmus. “This downward price curve is fueling demand for distributed solar PV and small wind systems as an alternative to centralized power generation. But the transition to a more distributed system is no small matter, and it requires the evolution of policies, technologies, and business models.”

Asmus adds that, while RDEG currently represents a very small part of the global electric power generation capacity – just 0.2% – it has the potential to play a much larger role in the future. Although Europe and the US are the largest markets for RDEG today, China and India are huge potential markets. Pike anticipates that Europe will continue to be the largest market for RDEG during the 2010-2015 forecast period, but China will see the largest market growth as the cost of renewable energy approaches that of conventional energy.