German and Chinese Solar Firms Battle for Survival
Michael Zhu gazes at the watch he's placed in front of him on the glass table in his office. He'll have to get a move on. He has to walk over to the factory and continue to work on forcing the Germans out of the very market they've created.
Zhu is the vice president of Suntech Power, which has an annual output of 10 million solar panels. No company in the world makes more than his, and no country in the world buys more than Germany.
"We really have to thank Germany," says Zhu, whose office is in Wuxi, a city on China's eastern coast. He raves about Germany -- about the clean air, about the politicians who decided early on to subsidize the production of green energy, and about the country's eco-conscious customers. Nearly one-third of the modules from his factory are sold to Germany.
Reiner Beutel stands in his solar technology plant 8,500 kilometers (5,300 miles) away, in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, and says he's not prepared to simply admit defeat.
"We intend to undercut the Chinese on price," says Beutel, who is CEO of German solar cell maker Sovello. Although he originally comes from near the southwestern city of Stuttgart, Beutel's job brought him to this industrial park, known as Solar Valley, on the outskirts of town. In a conference room, he steps up to an exhibit that is 1.5 meters long and 90 centimeters wide (about 5 feet by 3 feet). It's a solar module from Sovello's "T Series" which is particularly well-suited for roof installations and is manufactured in the nearby production halls.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/german-and-chinese-solar-firms-fight-for-survival-a-835367.html
