In an article over at China Daily, Applied Materials (AMAT) CEO Charles Gay predicts that China will make a tremendous push in domestic solar applications, catching up with its superiority in solar manufacturing to become a major consumer of solar electricity as well.  Not only does he see China doubling solar capacity within five years, but he believes they will reach solar grid parity two years before the US in 2018.  With China experiencing 12% growth annually in electricity demand it will need all the solar power it can get.  He’s bullish on a global basis as well and sees the solar industry growing 30% annually over the next five years.  Applied Materials (AMAT) continues to make strides in becoming a solar powerhouse in China and elsewhere.

====> Click Here For Your FREE Applied Materials Technical Analysis

"China is now not only a leader with advanced technology in the solar energy industry, it also has a lot of large-scale photovoltaic manufacturers that have developed rapidly in recent years," said Charles Gay, president of Applied Material’s solar business unit. "That will boost the local solar-energy market."

"More interestingly, solar energy can be the best solution for China, a country that uses one time system but has a large area covering three time zones. When electricity is at peak demand in the early evening in the eastern areas, the western part of China can still provide solar energy in the daytime," Gay said.

"We believe that by increasing conversion efficiencies, improving productivity, reducing manufacturing costs, and achieving economies of scale by our efforts in the R&D center, we can help China to establish a competitive, sustainable solar energy industry and expand the use of sunlight in the next years," Gay said.