Demand for solar power grew 16% year-over-year in 2014, representing 44 billion watts (gigawatts) of capacity purchased during the year.
At the same time, China, which in past years had flooded the market with solar panels, did not see growth as strong as had been expected. The growth was mainly due to healthy U.S. and Japanese markets, according to the report from EnergyTrend, a research division of TrendForce.
Overall, supply and demand remained stable, according to EnergyTrend.
"At the end of 2014, the overall supply chain maintained a solid utilization rate, while China's tier-one module manufacturers also continued to break shipment records," Jason Huang, research manager at EnergyTrend, said in the report.
Ironically, because the price of photovoltaic (PV) modules (the building blocks of solar panels) bottomed out last year, investors worldwide became concerned that profits would also drop. PV prices plummeted after China saturated the market with low-cost solar panel modules. The result: PV capacity rose from 31 gigawatts (GW or a billion watts) in 2012 to a record 39GW last year, even as investments in solar capacity dropped, according to a 2014 report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
In 2015, worldwide solar demand is projected to be 51.4GW, with the key markets -- China, the United States and Japan -- taking up 57% of the overall share.
The rise of emerging markets (the solar installation countries that are not in the top 10) has begun to appear. In 2015, the growth momentum of the emerging markets will become more apparent, and the overall demand will surpass 10GW.