On January 10, 2011 IMS Research (Wellingborough, U.K.) announced that for the first time, three U.S. companies were among the world's ten largest solar photovoltaic (PV) system integrators in 2010. While German companies still accounted many of the largest integrators, SunPower Corporation (San Jose, California, U.S.), First Solar Inc. (Tempe, Arizona, U.S.) and SunEdison LLC (Beltsville, Maryland, U.S.) joined the ranks of the top ten.

"2010 was an incredible year for utility-scale PV and a record capacity from such systems was installed worldwide during the year," commented IMS PV Research Analyst Sam Wilkinson. "Several very large plants were completed during the year, such as First Solar’s Sarnia project in Canada and SunEdison’s Rovigo plant in Italy."

Utility-scale PV grows 150% in 2010

Utility-scale systems grew the fastest of all PV system types, increasing 150% globally over 2009. As both the number of plants and plant sizes has grown, so have the companies that develop them.

IMS also reports that among the 400 most active system integrators, 30% are headquartered in the United States, despite the fact that the nation accounts for less than 10% of globally PV installations.

2011-01-12| Courtesy: IMS Research | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

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