How much collector area is installed in 'large solar plants'?

There are hardly any statistical inventories available about 'large solar plants' (by the way, this term is not clearly defined). In the context of IP-Solar, the threshold to a 'large' solar plant is 50 m².

• According to the market analysis 'Solarmarkt Österreich 2006' by Prof. Gerhard Faninger, the total area of glazed flat-plate collectors added up to 2,671,938 m², at the end of 2006. In 2006, 299,604 m² of these collectors were installed.

• There are no separate statistical data about large solar plants. Therefore, we try the following estimation: In 2006, 21,230 small installations with an average of 12 m² collector area were installed; based on this, another 44,844 m² remain for larger installations, that is 14.9%.

• As a convervative estimate, let us assume half of this percentage, that is: let us assume that 7% of the installed collector area be installed in large solar plants with more than 50 m².

The years 2005 and 2006 showed yearly increases of approx. 55,000 m² glazed flat-plate collectors compared to the preceding year. If we dare a forecast for 2010, based on these figures, the total installed collector area would be around 4,000,000 m². 7% of this number means that 280,000 m² would be installed in large solar plants.