The global solar rooftop market has been showing a good growth over the past few years and is expected to continue witnessing a solid growth over the forecast period. The growth of the market is gaining momentum on account of growing focus on the decarbonisation of the energy sector and reduction of carbon emissions worldwide. Governments and international organizations have been continuously working on the pathway for the deployment of low-carbon technology towards a sustainable and clean energy future. Energy sector transformation main goal is to reduce the energy-related CO2 emissions by way of rapidly shifting away from fossil fuels consumption towards cleaner renewable forms of energy. Rapidly declining cost of renewable energy cost is one such driver that is bolstering the installation rate of solar rooftops. According to the IRENA, the global weighted average cost of electricity from all commercially available renewable power generation solutions continued to fall in 2018. Increasing economies of scale and technological improvements will further continue to drive down the total installation cost of solar PV projects from $1,210 per kW average in 2018 to a range of $340 to $834 kW by 2030.

Supportive government initiatives and policy measures are also fueling the solar rooftop market growth. Governments are continuously trying to reduce carbon footprint while fulfilling the ever-increasing demand for cleaner energy. In December 2019, in India, the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) decided to encourage third-party investments in residential solar rooftop projects to accelerate capacity additions in the rooftop solar segment. In 2018, the Israeli government launched a new incentive scheme for rooftop solar PV. The scheme mainly focused on the deployment of 1.6 GW of rooftop PV capacity during the course of the next three years which is further aimed to achieve the country’s renewable energy target by 2020. 

Furthermore, various government policies in major developing countries are promoting sustainable use of energy regarding the promotion of rooftop solar panels like subsidies, loan facilities, and others. For instance, the rooftop scheme by the Solar Energy Corporation of India launched a tender which offered a 30% subsidy to the residential sector, private NPO’s, educational organizations and health institutions. This tender is an initiative for generating the momentum and achieving the target of 40GW of rooftop solar power generation by 2022. In January 2019, the Canadian government for the support and development of solar energy in Alberta, Canada, in which includes an investment of approximately $50 million to use the bi-facial solar PVs on a large scale for both the residential and commercial sector, thus anticipating the market growth during the forecast period.

However, recent COVID-19 global pandemic outbreak disrupting the global supply chain, lower power demand, and currency fluctuations making component costs has negatively impacted the global solar rooftop market. The major supply disruption caused by shutdown in China, the leading manufacturer of solar panels, is the major factor that has led to a decline in solar rooftop market growth. Moreover, construction activity has been also affected due to mandatory regulations regarding social distancing which has further deteriorated the market growth.

Although most of the solar rooftop’s troubles are due to social distancing measures that have closed off door-to-door sales channel, manufacturers are expecting for the situation to get worse even after shutdown measures are phased out. With a long halt in production, solar component prices are projected to initially rise due to shortage of raw materials till the shipping from China resumes and logistical issues due to lockdown. Also, a shortage of workforce could also mean a rise in labor cost in the short term.

Immense growth potential held by this market is attracting investments by many market players into research and development, and in business expansion, thus augmenting the growth of Solar Rooftop Market.

Competitive Scenario in the market

The key players in the market are investing heavily into this market in order to develop more efficient and new products for the purpose of expanding their product offerings. Also, investments into facility expansion and into partnerships and agreements are also supporting the market growth. Some of the key developments in the solar rooftop market are listed below:

Recently in February 2020, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Massader, a subsidiary of the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF) have signed a loan agreement to fund the installation of solar rooftop panels across the West Bank region. The loan package includes $8.1 million from Finland-IFC Blended Finance for Climate Program and the Dutch MENA Private Sector Development Program along with an $8.1 million loan from IFC. Furthermore, the World Bank has also announced to provide a grant of upto $2 million from the Investment Co-Financing Facility to help Massader solarize nearly 500 public schools in order to power 16,000 houses in the West Bank region.

Ever Source Capital, a joint venture between Lightsource BP and PE firm Everstone Capital, has recently acquired solar rooftop company Origin Renewables as a part of its strategy to enter the commercial and industrial solar rooftop business.

Recently in January 2020, SIL Rooftop, a wholly owned subsidiary of SunEdison Infrastructure Ltd, has acquired Sherisha Solar Private Ltd with an aim to deliver high-performance solar assets to its customers with improved customer service and visibility.

The Indian government has recently launched a Mobile App for solar rooftop systems called ARUN- Atal Rooftop Solar User Navigator- in order to monitor and manage the installation of solar rooftop system

In September 2017, MYSUN and GCL System Integration Technology partnered to launch ‘GCL G-Home rooftop solar kits especially made for the Indian market to speed up the installation process while enhancing performance and safety.

Motion Capture or mocap is a process in which the movement of people is digitally recorded. 3D motion capture systems are those systems that enable the users to capture those movements with the help of cameras and sensors then processing of those images or videos with the help of processing software. These systems are used across numerous industry verticals ranging from media & entertainment, healthcare, military and defense, sports and, others.

The growing applications of these systems across these industries is considered to be one of the prime factors which is propelling the market growth significantly during the next five years. These systems allow users to capture the real-time motion of humans and objects for attaining the required level of animation. The development of new games coupled with the decent growth in the gaming population is projected to significantly boost the adoption of these systems and thus, augment the market growth in the coming years. The development of VR games for gaming consoles along with the booming adoption of these games will further bolster the market growth.

Segment Overview

The 3D motion capture system market has been segmented on the basis of system, industry vertical, and geography. On the basis of system the 3D motion capture system market has been segmented into optical and non-optical. On the basis of industry vertical, the market has been classified into media and entertainment, healthcare, and others. Geographically, the market is segmented into the Americas, Europe Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific.

By system, the optical 3D motion capture system segment is projected to witness a substantial market share throughout the forecast period primarily on account of its wide application across the media and entertainment industry. The burgeoning growth in the making of 3D and high-tech animated movies is driving market growth in the near future. Furthermore, the booming investments by various production houses in 3D studios is further propelling the opportunities for the market to surge in the near future. Also, the rapid advancements in image capturing and processing technologies have enabled a significant increase in the demand for various solutions, thus resulting in the 3D motion capturing systems market growth in the coming years. In addition to this, the growing demand for augmented and virtual reality technology has also resulted in an increasing requirement for 3D capturing technologies, thus further augmenting the market growth in the coming years.

By industry vertical, the media and entertainment industry is anticipated to hold a considerable market share throughout the forecast period. The major factors that bolster the significant share of this segment during the next five years include the high adoption of these systems across the film making and game development sectors due to the rapid growth in the adoption of 3D gaming consoles and movies. Furthermore, the booming investments by developers and filmmakers in the adoption of the latest and advanced technologies further amplify the demand for these systems across this sector. The healthcare sector is projected to witness rapid growth during the next five years burgeoning adoption of these systems across the healthcare sector for the on account of technology adoption technology and investments in healthcare infrastructure in the major developing economies of the world is projected to be a key factor driving the growth of this segment during the next five years. Additionally, the emergence of wireless technologies has led to the development of personalized healthcare systems. This evolution has resulted in the fast global adoption of wearable devices that aids in an uninterrupted transmission of health-related information to service providers. The communication between patient and doctor is clear and precise and is devoid of ambiguities. This is one of the factors which is furthering enabling the growth of wearable display 3D motion capture system market. 

Geographically, the North American region is anticipated to hold a major market share on account of the early adoption of technology and well-established semiconductor industry in countries like the United States and Canada among others. Furthermore, the presence of key market players in the region is also supplementing the 3D motion capture system market growthin the North American region during the next five years. The Asia Pacific region is projected to witness a noteworthy CAGR throughout the forecast period on account of rising investments in the up-gradation of healthcare infrastructure and the military and defense sector.  

Competitive scenario

The growing investments by key market players as well as small players in the market in the form of R&D for developing new products and expanding the product portfolio along with facility expansions and acquisitions and partnerships in order boost the production to cater to the rising market demand and also to tap the potential that the market holds further shows the potential for the market to surge during the next five years.

• In November 2019, Vicon Motion Systems Ltd announced its partnership with Red Bull for diagnostics and training of athletes for its inertial tracking solution.

• In July 2019, Qualisys AB announced the launch of its latest mocap suit, the one and only suit in the market with scientific accuracy along with comfort.

• PTI Phoenix Technologies Inc., announced the launched the launch of its latest and advanced Visualeyez III VZ10K and VZ10K5 trackers and world’s smallest 3D active optical motion capture system.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rachit Gulati is a Market Research Analyst at Knowledge Sourcing Intelligence, working on estimates and global/regional specific reports on multiple industries ranging from automation to food and beverages, with a special knack for automotive and healthcare. With the addition of his formal education in Economics, Commerce, and Finance, he is able to provide more light on the macro aspects of the story. To read more articles by him, and for more information regarding multiple global markets, visit https://www.knowledge-sourcing.com.

Adaptive optics systems and components have evolved into sophisticated components which have become integral to traditional applications like that of astronomy and now even in the military. After the passing of millennium, the technology for adaptive optics has expanded beyond the confines of laboratory and have been increasingly used in medicine, manufacturing, and communications.  Adaptive optics is a branch of optics and photonics that employs light-controlling components to actively correct distortion in an incoming image. These distortions can occur when light from an astronomical object passes through the Earth’s atmosphere.

Smaller and low-cost wavefront sensors are poised to facilitate entry and growth of adaptive optics technology in the smaller observatory market thereafter the market which has amateur astronomers as their prime end-users. Moreover, with technological advancements, sensitive detectors are expected to be developed in the future with faster closed-loop correction. This would make adaptive optics effective at progressively smaller wavelengths. Owing to these factors, the global adaptive optics technology market size is expected to witness significant expanse during the next few years.

Research and Development is one of the key drivers for Adaptive Optics

Adaptive optics (AO) is a critical technology for the direct imaging of exoplanets. To this extent UC Santa Cruz has played a leading role in its development. The advantage of AO systems is that it sharpens the images obtained by ground-based telescopes by removing the blurring effects of turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. Image distortions such as slight misalignments of mirror segments that are introduced by the telescope can also be controlled by AO systems. To this end a multi-university team of astronomers that has been funded by the Heising-Simons Foundation to advance the technologies for a new era of exoplanet direct imaging and spectroscopy, includes a series of related projects to advance adaptive optics technology. This will not only lead to the improvement of the performance of current telescopes but also is essential for giant 30-meter class telescopes.

Nevertheless, there’s in one limitation with regards to AO i.e. depending on the wavelength, from a few arcsec to a few tens of arcsec, the correction is only valid in a very small patch of sky. To this end Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics, or MCAO, solves this problem by using a series of deformable mirrors to compensate for the turbulence in volume. To this end, in 2018 it was announced that the Australian scientists will lead the design phase of a multimillion-dollar project for a new system on one of the world’s most powerful ground-based optical telescopes which is expected to produce images that are  up to 3 times more sharp than those produced by Hubble Space Telescope. It was announced that the two partners in the Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO) consortium – The Australian National University (ANU, AAO-Stromlo) and Macquarie University (AAO-MQ) will design the new $AU32-million adaptive-optics system, called MAVIS (MCAO Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph), for one of the 8-meter Unit Telescopes at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Further, in an endeavor to establish space-to-ground quantum links that could be used to establish a space-based quantum optical connection between the Caltech-JPL quantum network and quantum networks in labs throughout the U.S, with a potential for industrial testbeds that are globally being developed, in March 2020, it was reported that Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are collaborating on the design of a practical field-programmable gate array (FBGA)-based, real-time quantum communications and use the AO  system at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility (TMF) 1-meter telescope to optimize the communication rate, thereby qualifying TMF for future space-ground quantum links using small satellites and other platforms

The growing cognizance of adaptive optics among the defense sector

Headquartered in Longmont, Colorado, and with 32 full-time employees, as well as specializing incoherent beam combining and control, which is regarded as key technologies for future directed-energy laser weapons, Nutronics is working with Montana State University on a volume digital holographic wavefront sensor for adaptive optical compensated imaging, as a part of The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) coordinated by US Small Business Administration. It is a highly competitive program that encourages domestic small businesses to engage in Federal Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) that has the potential for commercialization. Further, the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate which is the United States Air Force's center of expertise for directed energy and optical technologies is a world leader in ground-based space imaging that employs adaptive optics with a 3.5-meter telescope and 3.6-meter telescope in Mexico and Hawaii, respectively.

In March 2019, a demonstration of quantum communication, integrating a novel filtering technique enabled by AO was carried out by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Starfire Optical Range (SOR), It is a technology pioneered by SOR in daylight under conditions representative of space-to-Earth satellite links. Moreover, in April 2020, a $35 million contract for three dedicated launches to deliver 44 small satellites to low Earth orbit was awarded to VOX Space, a subsidiary of Virgin Orbit that focuses on the national security launch market as per announcement made by U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. Under the aegis of experiments covered within the mission of STP-S28 is a satellite called QUEYSSAT, developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the Canadian Department of National Defence.

Healthcare and adaptive optics

In an endeavor to address tissue scattering in an active way Lingjie Kong’s lab at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) has come up with a comprehensive method that combines an advanced adaptive compensation technique with computation for extended detection. The technique is called hybrid spatio-spectral coherent adaptive compensation (HSSCAC), which is designed to fully correct wavefront distortions in line-scanning temporal focusing microscopy (LTFM). LTFM is potential for providing high-speed imaging concomitant maintaining tight axial confinement. 

Thus, in the light of the aforementioned developments across various sectors the Adaptive Optics Technology Market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 30.73% to reach a value of US$5240.584 million by 2025.