Global market for rolled glass is projected to reach 3M/metric tons by 2018, driven by sustained demand from residential, commercial and specialty applications. Worldwide consumption of glass is growing, led by its increasing use in auto and building/construction markets. Demand trends in the flat glass market are shaped by the pace of economic development as well as the legislative and regulatory landscape. Flat glass is produced using two float, rolled and sheet glass techniques, with float glass accounting for a predominant share of overall demand. In contrast, rolled glass accounted for a very small percentage of the global flat glass demand during 2012. Rolled glass primarily finds use in residential, specialty and commercial applications including shower enclosures, glass doors, partitions, solar photovoltaic panels, amongst others. Even though a blip on the world radar, the rolled glass market is poised for steady growth in the future, despite the fact that float lines are continuously replacing production lines of wired and patterned glass across the globe. A major factor that is providing a fillip to the market is the growing demand for solar glass in China. This is mainly because rolled glass offers many benefits over float glass, as far as solar glass is concerned. One favourable factor in its favour is that a ton of rolled glass requires much less energy to produce, compared to an equal quantity of float glass. Though rolled glass at present has an edge in solar photovoltaic units, float glass is expected to make significant progress in the coming years. The shift towards using float glass, as against rolled glass, in solar PV units is expected to intensify with the lowering of production costs associated with float glass. Asia-Pacific represents the largest, as well as the fastest growing market for rolled glass in the world.
