The five countries in the Middle East will bid for 8 gigawatts of PV capacity in 2018

GTM Research according to the market Research company Research and Saudi Arabia, the solar energy industries association, blue horizon energy released and the analysis of global energy company global solar market attraction index, predicts 2023, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan and the UAE photovoltaic cumulative installed capacity will reach 22.4 GW.

Analysts also expect the five countries to offer about 8 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity in 2018.

The growth of the next few years will be driven largely by a large number of utilities and the low cost of solar energy recorded in the region.

The index says that despite a sharp fall in costs and the introduction or development of net metering policies, the region is still far from making full use of the huge potential of solar distributed generation.

The report says the development of solar and distributed generation in these countries has been hampered by artificially low residential and commercial electricity prices, which have led to delays in the adoption of metered distributed solar solutions.

"According to the IMF report, total fuel subsidies in these five markets totaled nearly $150 billion in 2015, with Saudi Arabia accounting for 72% of the total.In these key markets, retail electricity subsidies account for between 54% and 98% of residential electricity consumption, accounting for 16% to 96% of commercial electricity consumption.The report said.

That may change in the near future, however, as the recent fall in oil prices is pushing several governments in the region to reconsider their subsidies.Only two countries, Jordan and the UAE, are reportedly providing opportunities for commercial solar projects.

"These findings suggest that if no installation cost is lower than the market, to accelerate the elimination of retail subsidies, or balanced competition environment similar incentive plan, then distributed photovoltaic power generation is unlikely to occupy a large proportion of demand in the market."Global energy analysis company, managing partner of Aaron Morrow said: "the scale of public utilities project bidding dominate, created a project contracting way, but almost no potential market ecosystem."