China's low-cost labor will make it a world contender in most inexpensively turning raw silicon.  China is likely to be of paramount importance to the solar industry because of its low-cost manufacturing capabilities and potentially enormous domestic demand driven by new government programs.

Chinese-based manufacturing will help lower the cost of solar. China has enormous (>1,000 MW) low-cost manufacturing capacity coming online over three years, and the entire solar food chain can now be found within China, including polysilicon feedstock, wafer, cell, and module production in addition to domestic wet-chemistry and equipment suppliers.