Even before nuclear fears began spreading through Asia after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, solar analysts were looking to the East for new development opportunities.

While the short-term outlook for solar development in Japan will likely be slow-going, the long-term looks promising, as it does in other Asian-Pacific markets, said Chris Bolman, author of a new report on the region from PHOTON Consulting.

The firm released its study report, “Solar Power Markets: Eastern Sunrise,” earlier this month.

The report goes into depth, analyzing the current markets as well volume and pricing potential for future development in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Bolman said he conducted the study because he knew solar companies and investors would be looking for new markets as the incentive programs in Europe begin to diminish. Bolman decided to focus on the Asian-Pacific market because of the aggregate economic growth trajectory of the region and widespread electrical needs, he said.

“Australia, China, India and Japan have the best overall combinations of naturally attractive PV economics, central government support for solar installation deployment and distributed electrification needs,” Bolman wrote in an e-mail about why he felt those were the strongest regions for future solar development.

Most of the countries Bolman studied already have some emphasis on solar development, though most of them have simply set portfolio goals without implementing incentive structures, Bolman said.

Solar development in most of these countries will have to move forward differently than it did in Europe as they’re working with, in many cases, a less developed electrical infrastructure, limited local solar photovoltaic expertise and higher capital costs, especially in the less developed areas, Bolman wrote. Yet, the region is warming to the idea of solar development.

“Policy makers in the Asia-Pacific region appear to be developing an increasing awareness of PV’s strong demand, elasticity and market growth potential when incentives create elevated end-customer returns,” Bolman wrote. “Intent on learning from the successes and failures of European PV incentive schemes, policy makers in the region are now pursuing highly targeted solar support schemes.”

He said he expects to see conservative incentive measures to start with slow and steady growth.

The disaster in Japan is likely to stall major solar development in that country in the near-term, Bolman said. But in the longer term, he believes demand for the technology will boom there as the country looks for more affordable alternatives to importing fuels to a country that probably won’t warmly receive any new nuclear installations.

He also suspects that the brownouts and blackouts that resulted from this disaster might inspire some Japanese citizens to want more individual energy independence, thus driving residential solar development.

But disasters aside, the overall thesis of the “Solar Markets 2011: Eastern Sunrise” report is that the future of solar is looking sunny in the Asian-Pacific.

Image courtesy of pvexpo.jp.