German solar energy competitive by 2014- Q-Cells
FRANKFURT, June 8 (Reuters) - The chief executive of Germany's Q-Cells (QCEG.DE), the world's largest solar cell maker, said on Sunday he believed that solar energy could be competitive without subsidies in Germany by 2014.
"My assessment is that we can talk about 2014," said Anton Milner in an interview with Sunday paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS).
He also said that the Italian and Spanish markets could perhaps reach that goal as early as 2011 or 2012, as production costs of conventional thermal energy were rising due to increasing environmental costs, and in line with record oil.
Subsidies to the German solar industry were cut last month by eight percent for each of the next two years, and by nine percent in 2011.
This was far less than the industry had feared after some conservatives had pushed for a 30 percent decrease in 2009.
The cuts affect mostly support for rooftop solar panels, as policymakers want the renewable industries to start living without support.
Milner said the subsidy cuts should still hurt.
While production costs had been cut by 30 percent over the past five years, increases of the most important raw material, silicon, had eaten up 11 percent of the savings alone, he said.
German law recognising that solar producers have to be paid above-market prices for the power they feed into the grid have helped the industry flourish, creating jobs and exportable technologies and prompted other countries to copy the law.
Milner said in the FAS interview that his company might easily exceed earlier job number forecasts of 5,000 at its Thalheim site by 2010, where it currently employs 3,500.
He also said the company would defend its independent position if big utility groups attempted a takeover.
"Nothing's impossible but we would not like to play in that big corporate world," he said. "The big companies are too slow and too conservative for such a dynamically growing industry." (Reporting by Vera Eckert; Editing by David Cowell)
