Booming solar industry gathers at three-day German showcase

Jun 22, 2006, 13:32 GMT

   Freiburg, Germany - The solar-electricity and solar-heating industry, which has delighted investors with furious sales growth in the past couple of years, gathered Thursday in the German city of Freiburg for a three-day annual trade show.

Boosted by German government tax breaks and regulations, the sector has scored its fastest growth in Germany, where the industry acclaimed Thursday the fact that there were now 150 factories turning out solar-driven equipment.

The German solar industry federation BSW said its members' output rose 67 per cent last year, but cautioned that this year's growth was likely to be more modest and closer to 10 per cent. Stock prices of solar companies have run up sharply in the past years.

The exhibition, Intersolar, has attracted 454 exhibitors from 27 nations, organizers in Freiburg in south-western Germany said. That was 90 more exhibitors than a year ago at a fair described as the biggest European showcase for the technologies.

Some 23,000 trade visitors from 70 nations were expected at Intersolar, which BSW chief executive Carsten Koernig described as mirroring the state of the industry as a whole.

Solar water-heating continues to be the dominant part of the industry, but electricity generation from photo-voltaic solar cells on private buildings is bounding ahead in places where national electricity grids are obliged to accept and pay for the power.

Koernig said Germany now led the world in the rate at which it was installing photo-voltaic systems, ahead of both Japan and the United States. In a play on the term 'Silicon Valley,' he said Germany could claim to be the world's 'Solar Valley.'

The German manufacturers currently exported 35 per cent of their output but hoped to double that proportion in the next few years once Spain, Italy, France and Greece brought in legislation making it compulsory for power companies to purchase solar-based electricity.

The city of Freiburg has thousands of solar panels, since it is one of Germany's sunniest areas, with 1800 hours of sunshine a year. The International Solar Energy Society (ISES) and other solar institutions have headquarters in the city.