This article examines the solar glass industry in Asia. Initially considered as a mere fad, the solar glass market continues to expand rapidly and is expected to grow in the coming five years. The solar energy application for flat glass is relatively small in volume when compared to the markets of flat glass for architectural and automotive purposes. However, the share of this niche market is continuously increasing due to a booming solar industry. In fact, a few years ago, when the solar-energy glass market was on the rise and was expected to grow steadily to represent over 15% of flat glass volume by 2015, significant investments and commitments were made by many players in fully-dedicated patterned and float glass installations to produce glass for solar energy applications, which resulted in a huge overcapacity in the sub-segment. Many of these lines were installed in China, which is facing an acute overcapacity. Currently, more than 60% of global solar glass production comes from China due to concentration of solar PV production in the country. Other Asian countries such as India, Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan too have one or more dedicated solar float glass lines, but declining solar PV production in these countries is limiting the future growth of this sub-segment in these countries. In fact, some of the earlier announced plans to establish solar float lines had to be abandoned by some key players in these respective countries. In extreme cases, some of the operational lines had to be mothballed or converted to normal float glass production.
