Silicon rally

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: the short run, says Jenny Chase of New Energy Finance, the construction of a few less efficient, higher-cost plants will eventually create a tier of marginal producers, and so temper future price swings.

Yet even if the silicon price falls, other bottlenecks may well appear. The first step in making solar cells is to shape silicon into ingots and then slice it into wafers. Ingot and wafer-makers hope a surge in the silicon supply will expose a lack of capacity in their fields. Others wonder whether there will be enough of the specialist chemicals that coat cells. HSBC predicts that the solar industry will grow by 45% a year until 2012. Such searing expansion is bound to cause more growing pains.