As we all know, China is investing heavily in renewable energy as early as 2005 (http://www.worldwatch.org/node/41). In the past two weeks Suntech, says Jeff Wolfe, Co-Founder and CEO of groSolar in his article “What we can Learn from China’s Heavy Investment in Solar Energy”, currently the largest solar module manufacturer in the world, signed 2 GW (2000 MW) of projects in China (contracts of a single company versus the total US market amounting to 0.35 GW).
Common sense would tell that China’s cheap labor accounts for the huge difference. Yet, Wolfe cautions; China is actually devoting a lot of money and energy in R&D as well as raising government subsidies and incentives for PV Companies.
Moreover, the strong loans for PV companies are valid for foreign investments as well, thus he says “So the real irony is that I am going to China not just to find products, but to find financing (preliminarily offered) to install those products in the US.”
Maybe all economies need more of a government intervention to boost the demand for the solar energy.
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I agree with your point. People tend to care about the short term outcomes, more often in crisis periods.
But, we have bad news for Denver. The new fee proposed by Xcel Energy would punish new customers for getting solar panels.
It’s a monthly fee, which would pay for distribution and transmission of energy,planned to go into effect in April 2010 and would have to be paid to Xcel, regardless of whether the solar customer used any electricity that month. Customers who got solar panels before April 2010 would not have to pay the fee.