The following facts come from a New York Times article – which served as the basis for this post – on potential trade violations among Chinese solar panel manufacturers.
- The American solar power market is worth about $6 billion a year.
- China already accounts for three-fifths of the world’s solar panel production.
- China exports 95 percent of its production, much of it to the United States, which has helped push wholesale solar panel prices down from $3.30 a watt of capacity in 2008 to $1.80 by last January and now to $1.20. A typical solar panel might have a capacity of 230 watts.
- Solar power generates only about one-tenth of 1 percent of the United States’ electricity.
- An Energy Department report in July said that federal subsidies for solar power totaled $1.134 billion in the 2010 fiscal year, up from $179 million in 2009.
Image source: Metropolitan Museum of Art
