The growing pains of the solar industry

On Monday 27 August, German electronics company Bosch announced it was closing a factory for solar panel materials in the central town of Erfurt.

The day before, German solar panel manufacturer Q.Cells, a market leader before filing for insolvency in April, confirmed it had been taken over by South-Korea’s Hanwha.

Earlier in September, China’s GCL-Poly, a leading maker of sillicon for solar cells, presented a more-than-100 percent plunge in profits - despite an increase in sales v...