Direction and Rate of Technological Change
The number of PV technology options has increased over the years. For a highly dynamic market such as solar PV, diversity helps facilitate spillover across technologies and has the positive effects of keeping technological options open and stimulating innovation. Among all the technological options, dominant designs emerge over time through competition between different options. The emergence of a dominant design affects the focus of R&D and the rate of technical advances, as well as the dynamics and structure of the industry.
Sampaio and González (2017) developed a conceptual framework which uses the following four factors to assess the competitive position of each PV technology: efficiency, cost, life span and environmental aspect [24].