Solar energy industry must forge forward

The past year has been one of crisis and confusion for the solar energy industry. The stock index of the renewable energy plummeted more than 30 percent. Many medium and smaller solar enterprises went bankrupt in 2012. The renewable energy industry is in crisis, said an article of People's Daily. Excerpts:

Why has the once promising solar energy industry fallen so hard? The Eurozone debt crisis has prompted many countries in Europe to cut their subsidies for solar energy. The demand for solar energy products has dropped by a large margin, making the raw material supplies in the industry outweigh the market demand. As prices drop, the competition becomes cutthroat for many lower-level enterprises.

Chinese solar energy enterprises dominate this market because of their scale. Such dominance comes at a cost of low efficiency and a high rate of bankruptcy. Although the world's five leading solar energy enterprises are all from China, China also witnessed the highest number of solar energy enterprises collapse. To make things worse, to protect their own green energy enterprises, the United States and some European countries launch anti-dumping investigations against Chinese solar energy products.

Under such circumstances, China must stimulate its domestic demands for the solar energy industry and follow the US and Japan in providing more financial subsidies for China's solar energy industry.

The current global financial crisis should not be an obstacle for the progress of the global renewable energy industry. Global warming will not stop because of the financial crisis. Renewable energy stands for the future of human energy consumption.