| Intersolar launches big leap to USA
Christoph Hammerschmidt MUNICH, Germany — The market for photovoltaics devices and production equipment will explode over the years to come, said Eicke Weber, General Manager of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), at the occasion of the Intersolar trade fair in Munich. The launch of an American Intersolar offspring in coming July is seen as a major milestone to the photovoltaics industry. Weber, who worked for 23 years as a professor at the University of California in Berkeley, acted as the linchpin when it came to export Europe's largest PV trade fair to North America. "Germany is leading in terms of PV technology, and I thought it would be very exciting to bring such an event to the USA," he said during a press conference at the Intersolar trade show in Munich. Intersolar USA will take place as a special show within the SEMI West from July 14th to July 18th at the Moscone Center in San Franciso. The organizers expect more than 10.000 attendees to visit the 200 exhibitors. Target groups are similar as at Intersolar Europe: Industry, installers, architects, the wholesale trade and policy makers. Dieter Salomon, city mayor of Freiburg (Germany) where Fraunhofer ISE is located, and chairman of the Intersolar organizer company, remarked that the reason why PV technology is successful in a not-so-sunny country such as Germany is the legal conditions. Here, the production of energy from renewable sources is heavily subsidized; even private persons can install PV panels on the roof of their houses and feed the electric energy into the grid and public utilities are obliged to buy that energy. Such a regulation is seen as the basis for high user numbers, Salomon said. "German renewable energy legislation has inspired similar acts all over the European Community", Salomon said, adding that once such a legal basis will have been created in North America and China, the solar energy business is expected to soar. Against the background of the climate change, photovoltaic energy will make a significant contribution to global energy generation over the next 20+ years, said Semicon President Richard Salsman who pointed out that today's PV industry can build on the 50 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. "After all, PV is mostly semiconductors. And in this industry, innovation always was infectious," he said. Copyright © 2008 TechInsights, a Division of United Business Media LLC., EETimes EU Copyright All rights reserved. |