Is China's Solar Industry Sustainable?

Filed in archive News on December 4, 2007

Todd Glass, energy specialist with the Heller Ehrman law firm, thinks that the solar sector in China is unsustainable. And he says so in a recent interview with Xinhua Financial Network News.



Why does he feel this way? According to XFN, Glass said this:

"The key to the success of these companies must be the ability to sell their modules at an efficient cost, but some of them are running purely on cheap labor, which is not sustainable, and they will not survive."

China's solar industry, according to Glass, faces two main problems. The first is the relatively slow growth of China's demand for solar energy. The solar cell manufacturers in China aren't getting a lot of domestic business. A second problem is the growing interest of Silicon Valley in the solar power industry. Glass thinks competition will eventually cut into the success of China's solar industry's exports.