China Solar Industry

China was always supposed to be the holy grail which would lead the solar panel industry to great profitability. In 2010 and 2011 even as Germany installed 6-7000 MW of solar panels every year, China barely installed even 200 MW as the government found solar energy too expensive and refused to give a national solar feed in tariff. The Chinese solar panel industry was almost wholly dependent on exports to Europe. This situation was totally unsustainable as Europe got saturated with solar panels and the domestic European industry got decimated by the Chinese low cost competition. This has resulted in a trade war between China on the one hand and the other major trading blocs on the other hand.

The Chinese government has now realized that it cannot just play the other guys for fools and has ramped up its own solar energy consumption by a massive amount. The country is set to become the largest demand source for solar panels with 10 GW in 2013 and this may rise to a gargantuan 15 GW by 2014, as the solar feed in tariffs become attractive with the very low prices of solar installations. Note China installs almost 100 GW of power each year most of which is dirty coal. With pollution becoming a huge problem in the Chinese cities, solar and wind energy are clearly the way to go as nuclear power is too slow in getting built and has NIMBY problems. 15 GW of solar energy is not that much for China, though it will make a huge difference to global demand as China might account for almost 1/3rd of the global demand.

Read Pros and Cons of Renewable Energy.

The solar prices have also become quite low in recent times so it’s a good strategy for China. It supports the domestic solar panel industry and also gives good clean cheap power on the other hand. This is good news for solar stocks, especially the Chinese ones which have multiplied like crazy from their lows. They were trading at abysmal valuations and they are still not in the territory by any means. You have to be careful while investing in the right one, otherwise you might find your money evaporating like it has in Suntech and LDK Solar.