Photovoltaics in the light of sustainable development and qualitative growth

Although many people say that there is already a market for photovoltaics (PV), from the economical point of view there is at best, apart from the remote power “market”, some demand by a pilot market, that consists of idealistic, in the economic sense nonrational consumers. In essence, an ideal market with full cost accounting does not exist in the energy sector. Concerning the future of PV, the question is, how the decision-making on electricity generating technologies will change in the future. The most probable path should be anticipated by the people of the PV community and R&D directions should be adopted in such a way to be able to realize the full potential of PV. In this paper it is first shown that the decision-making in the future will be primarily governed by the adopted energy policy then by ideal markets. The catalogue of aims of this energy policy will shift towards new paradigms of economic development, because this is the most practical way to avoid a further increase of external effects. The new paradigms, for which “sustainable development” and “qualitative growth” impose certain criteria for energy systems that have to be anticipated as early as possible