PHOTO VOLTAICS - MARKETS AND BENEFITS.

In 2004, the photovoltaic industry production broke the 1 GW production barrier and became a 5.8 billion € business. European market share rose from 1999 to 2004 from 20% to 26% reaching about 310 MWp in 2004. With a growth rate of more than 40%during the last 5 years, photovoltaics is one of the fastest growing industries worldwide. In order to maintain this growth rate, the photovoltaics industry needs not only reliable political framing conditions to ensure a return on investment, but continuous innovation and research. This leads to the search for new development with respect to material use and consumption, device design, reliability and production technologies as well as new concepts to increase the overall efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]