With oil prices volatile—teeter-tottering from a high of over $147 this July to $38 a barrel this week—and the world economy faring not much better, investing in solar is probably not the first thing on many people’s minds right now. Yet, dismal economic forecasts and industry difficulties—not to mention troubled state incentives—aside, a report from earlier this fall shows, pre-financial-meltdown, soaring growth for photovoltaic solar production that left (and is hopefully still leaving) a lot of room for potential.

The 2008 PV Status Report, released in September by the European Union’s Joint Research Centre Institute for Energy, gives an 142-page overview of the current activities in global solar cell production, including research, manufacturing and market implementation and shows large continued increases in global production. It states that, since 2003, total PV production grew in average by roughly 50 percent, while the thin film sector did so by around 80 percent. As it notes that most PV manufacturers are diversifying their production portfolios, it projects a 25 to 35 percent thin film market share by 2010 and lists three solar manufacturers (First Solar, Showa Shell Sekiyu and Best Solar) that will either achieve or aim to achieve an annual production capacity of at least 1 GW by 2010, with a number of other producers hoping to hit 500 MW in that time frame. It also notes that, in spite of the stresses from the credit crunch toward the end of 2007, new funding for renewable energies increased by 60 percent ($148 billion) from 2006 to 2007 worldwide, the largest portion of which went to solar ($28.6 billion, or 19 percent). The stock market sellout of September 2008 notwithstanding, the report predicts a worldwide production capacity of anywhere from 6 GW (conservative scenario) to 17 GW by 2010, with a tentative estimate of 35 GW should all manufacturers meet their production goals. This would, in turn, lead to an oversupply, in which case steep cost reductions could be in order.

Although Germany, Spain and Japan take top honors in the report for the sizes of their solar markets (1,100, 341 and 210 MW, respectively), the United States is not far behind Japan, at 205 MW. The Chinese and Taiwanese markets remain immature but the report is optimistic about growth. (Other big developing countries, such as Brazil or India, were not mentioned in the report.)

Granted, the report was released in September 2008, when the economic crisis was just beginning to loom and its depth not yet apparent. However, how much salt is too much salt to take with the optimism of the report? As it points out, European and international solar resources are in large supply and can’t be monopolized by one single country, and although new players may be deterred from entering and growing the market, plenty of the big shots have already finalized their production deals and have long since embarked on their ambitious manufacturing plans. Yes, they may have to scale them back in the interim. But they don’t have to stop everything completely.