How is the solar industry shaping up in 2008?

A very informative piece here - Contradictions in the Solar Market - well worth a read by Robert Castellano. He makes some notable points;

• 50% projected growth of the solar PV market in 2008 to 5.6 GW
• Thin film's market share will grow to 14.4% in 2008 from 9.4% in 2007 and the same growth rate takes it to 17.8% in 2009
  
• The low load factors / capacity utilization of the solar industry, 52% compared to around 90% for the semiconductor industry, which will grow to 57% and 63% in 2008/2009
  
• Thin film, when you take into account the lower efficiencies, is not actually any cheaper

What gets me though about this piece is that whilst it's certainly true that a lot of solar plants aren't working at anything like full capacity, the underlying assumption is possibly mistaken to assume that they can. That may well not be true. Surely, even with the very full order books many solar firms enjoy, wouldn't they want to produce at close to 100% capacity?

There has to be another reason. Part of it has to be finding the right staff - it is quite odd how the former Communist part of East Germany (the GDR) has become Germany's solar production hub.  But the massive subsidies for setting up a business in East Germany make it worth doing. Even so, in spite of all these incentives, nearly 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany is still emptying of people. Now take a look at the semiconductor factories in China, which are teeming with life and the spirit of can-do. They are fuelled by near infinite quantities of potential workers as China continues its often painful population shift from the countryside to the coastal cities.

So the point is this. In the long run, even in alternative energy, population is the greatest resource any country can have. And that's why, China in the years to come, will leave Germany for dust in solar production and not long after that,  I wouldn't bet against them doing it with some other alternative energy technologies too.