Speakers at the European Photovoltaic Industry Association's (EPIA) third International Conference on Solar Photovoltaic Investments confirmed that all banks have strongly reduced their credit loans and the solar PV sector has not escaped the trend. Project financing appears to be a challenge for the industry. While it required around 4 weeks to obtain debt financing in 2008, today it takes 8 to 10 weeks, on average. The perceived risk for all projects is higher, so fewer banks are engaged and they prefer less than €50 million projects.

Speakers said that companies able to reduce their prices and companies at the forefront of PV technology should be the most successful in this climate. The EPIA and speakers at the conference recognized the module oversupply situation in today’s PV market. It remains to be seen how this will effect the market for the rest of this year, but most experts are hopeful that as economic recovery begins low module prices will lead to large volume sales.

By Vasil Sidorov on April 20, 2009 after RenewableEnergyWorld.com