EAST GERMAN SUN

This is a long way from a managed economy. Let the sun shine in.

Solar energy brightens up East Germany
June 15, 2007 (Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) via Yahoo News India)

WHO
Frieberg Mayor Uta Rensch, Carsten Koernig, chief executive, Federation of Solar Industry,
German sun potential only barely illuminates the economic potential (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Once a mining town, Frieberg is becoming an alternative energy nexus, especially solar cell production companies.

WHEN
Growth has slowly developed over the last 3 decades and continues to grow. 1-year projection: 15 new solar factories. 5-year projection: Energy sector jobs double.

WHERE
Freiberg, Germany, once communist East Germany (and surrounding region)

WHY
- Frieberg is surrounded by wind farms, has the biggest solar plant in the world and the area has produced half the German solar industry’s revenues.
- Revenues have doubled, there is a shortage of workers with alternative energy industry skills and the region is building infrastructure to facilitate expansion and trade, especially with Asia.
- Government incentives and an abundance of ex-miners as labor nurtured Frieberg’s boom, breaking East Germany free from economic doldrums persisting since reunification.
German renewables development: the trend is clear (click to enlarge)

- Deutsche Solar AG: 8% revenue from the Asian- Pacific region, 12 % of world solar wafers by 2008;
- Hamburg-based Conergy AG: Europe's biggest solar energy group, huge investment renovating chip factory into a mass-volume solar wafer facility, the first in the world. Another is being built near Leipzig. Berlin-based Solan AG: 72% sales growth in 2006.
ersol Solar Energy AG: doubled sales in 2006.

QUOTES
- Rensch: 'Freiberg has gone from a mining town to a high-tech town…'
- Koernig: 'Between Saxony, Thuringia, Saxon-Anhalt and more recently Brandenburg (states comprising Germany's east), there is the highest concentration of solar companies in the whole world…'