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  1. Havakasha is offline
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    Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 5,358
    02-14-2011, 12:14 AM #1

    China Profits From Solar-Power Strategy as Europeans Backpedal

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...subsidies.html

    China Profits From Solar-Power Strategy as Europeans Backpedal
    By Bloomberg News - Feb 13, 2011 7:00 PM ET

    iChina, the world’s biggest electricity consumer, is figuring out how to capture a larger share of the solar-energy market without losing money.

    The government will spend at least a year studying Europe’s system of paying above-market prices for solar power before deciding if there’s a better way to spur clean-energy plants across China, said Wu Dacheng, an adviser to national power regulators. The delay has stalled projects planned on Chinese soil by developers such as First Solar Inc. of the U.S.

    “We need to learn from European countries like Germany” that pay subsidized rates to spark solar-panel installations, Wu, vice chairman of the Solar Photovoltaic Committee of China’s Renewable Energy Society, said in an interview.

    Europe, which attracted more than $65 billion in solar plant investment in 2010, is providing lessons for China. Germany, the largest panel market, together with Spain and France carried out four unscheduled subsidy cuts in 2010, trying to slow a torrent of projects by developers and speculators.

    China’s wait-and-see strategy on projects is part of a broader industrial plan to take a leading global role in harnessing energy from the sun. China is first focusing state support on its own equipment manufacturers. That helps them gain market share and cut prices, lowering the eventual cost of a nationwide solar construction program China plans for itself.

    “China is definitely playing a longer game in solar,” Daniel Guttmann, head of renewable energy strategy at the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in London, said by telephone. “It has done a lot to subsidize its manufacturers.”

    Polysilicon to Panels

    The government’s China Development Bank alone approved more than 126 billion yuan ($19 billion) in credit facilities in the second half of last year for makers of everything from the raw material of polysilicon to the finished solar panel, including Baoding-based Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

    Chinese solar equipment makers outperformed most U.S. and European competitors in stock markets in the last 12 months. The top three, led by LDK Solar Co., gained about 57 percent on average in the period, compared with 50 percent for the top three based in the U.S. and 6 percent for the Europeans.

    China this year will increase its share of the global solar photovoltaic panel market by about 10 percentage points and for the first time supply a majority of the devices that turn sunlight into power, according to London-based Bloomberg New Energy Finance. In contrast, China bought less than 3 percent of the 18.5 gigawatts in estimated worldwide panel sales for its domestic projects.



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    Last edited by Havakasha; 02-14-2011 at 12:16 AM.