The government has said China will support domestic consumption of solar cells made from local polysilicon materials.It said the country’s production capacity of polysilicon, an high energy-intensive and pollutive product used to make solar cells, had obviously exceeded demand. Therefore demand had to be stimulated.
China has around 80,000 tons of polysilicon production capacity under construction and 20,000 tons of capacity in operation that produced some 4,000 tons of polysilicon in 2008.
The cabinet said, "Our solar power market develops slowly and 98 percent of solar cells are exported, which means large amounts of scarce energy are exported."
The government will strictly curb new polysilicon projects in energy-scarce regions and encourage polysilicon producers to team up with solar cell producers to improve efficiency.
Alibaba reports that any new polysilicon project must have a capacity of more than 3,000 tons per year while occupying less than six hectares of land for every 1,000 tons of polysilicon output.