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Summer solstice is a great time to celebrate the sun and all the benefits we receive from it–light, resources for life and warmth for the Earth. It’s also a great time to talk about solar energy and its adoption around the world.

India’s solar industry is finally taking off, but before it can make a meaningful contribution to the country’s growing power demands, many hurdles must still be overcome say experts and business leaders in the field.

In order to remain competitive in the global solar market and compete with countries like China and others, Indian manufactures will need to scale up and quickly. The market is there and booming, but manufacturers need capacities of 300-1,000 MW to remain competitive.

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Applied Materials, Inc. was recognized as the largest supplier of photovoltaic (PV) solar manufacturing equipment in 2011 by VLSIresearch, a market research firm located in Santa Clara, Calif. This is the fourth consecutive year that Applied has been ranked number one in revenue in the PV solar market, and fiscal 2011 represented its third year of achieving more than $1 billion in sales in this market.*

Last year, the Japanese government announced the creation of a national feed-in tariff (FiT) for solar, joining Germany and China in creating robust public policy to drive deployment of renewable energy. The program is set to launch on July 1, 2012 and solar is regarded as one of the brightest spots in the Japanese recovery from the tsunami.

The solar market has grown far beyond what most analysts had predicted even 5-10 years ago, and Applied Materials has played a key role in driving down the costs of solar modules by helping to improve efficiencies and through advances in solar cell manufacturing technology.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) hosted a renewable energy tax equity seminar recently at the White House. The seminar was designed to promote private sector investment in tax equity partnerships for solar, wind and other renewable energy projects. Since the 2008 economic crisis, financing available for renewable energy projects has been limited as the renewable tax equity markets have been very slow to recover.Read more