China’s Push to Dominate Solar Tech Will Spur Clean Energy Use Worldwide

(Bloomberg) — China’s lead in solar manufacturing is now extending to the technology that will lower costs and allow clean energy to spread across the globe.

Longi Green Energy Technology Co. Ltd., the world’s biggest solar firm by market value, set a record late last year for silicon cell efficiency — a measure of how much of the sun’s energy gets converted into usable electricity. It’s the first time a Chinese group has held the record — widely considered a benchmark for scientific achievement in the field — and it probably won’t be the last, according to one of the industry’s top researchers.