The impact of countries' roles on the international photovoltaic trade pattern: The complex networks analysis

Abstract

The expansion of the international PV trade encourages governments to focus on their trade roles in this market, which has increasing impact on their future development of sustainable energy. Thus, an exploration of top traders and their influence on global PV trade pattern is essential as governments seek to develop strategies to improve their global PV market's discourse power. This study introduces the complex network theory to examine top traders whose default would lead to the collapse of trade pattern and their impactful ways. Moreover, the potential structural reason for top traders' influence on trade is explored via link prediction. We find that a group of European countries account for 80% of global importation and are the most influential traders and bridges; a group of Asian countries are among the top exporters with half of the global share; and European countries' high influence is due to their large number of trade partners instead of their trade volume. Above all, a high number of trade partners is more important than trade volume for countries seeking to be top traders. Finally, we discuss these results given the recent promising development of international PV trade.