Solar as a new renewable energy and has attracted more and more concern. Photovoltaic power generation is a way of solar utilization. It has been paid wide attention because of the energy conservation and the environmental protection effect. In recent years, photovoltaic power generation developed rapidly, photovoltaic technology progressed continually, the cost of photovoltaic power generation reduced constantly, every country introduced various policies to support, photovoltaic power generation becomes the fastest growing industries .Every country introduced relevant policies and plan, positively develop photovoltaic industries. In the international environment, have a foothold for domestic energy. The Chinese government also introduced relevant policies to support renewable energy development.

For a long time, the people have been working to study and use solar energy. Solar energy that the earth received only accounts for about one over two billons of all energy from sun‘s surface. The energy is equal to 30,000 `40,000 times that all energy the earth needed.  It is indeed an inexhaustible supply. Secondly, there are no nighttimes and seasons on the cosmic space, No dark clouds and shadows, radiant energy is very stable. Therefore the generating system is relatively simpler than the ground, in the universe environment without weight and high vacuum, and is also not too high for the strength requirement of the equipment component. Moreover, the solar is different from the oil, coal and other fossil fuels, will not lead to "greenhouse effect" and global climate changes, and will not cause environmental pollution. Because of that, the solar utilization has been attention by many countries. They are racing to develop kinds of new technology and materials of photoelectric to expand the application field of solar utilization. Especially in recent 10 years, with the two crises drag of the oil production bottom out increasingly and the eco-environment gets worse. We are increasingly expects the arrival of the "solar era". From power generation, heating, water supply to all kinds of solar power plant, which application is very wide. In some fields, the solar utilization has been applied in practice.

Between 1974 and 1997, the power generation cost of semiconductor silicon photocell decreased one level in America and Japan and other developed countries. From $50 per watt was down to $5 per watt. After that most of the specialists around the world think that if compared the solar power station to the traditional power station(mainly thermal power station), has its own economic competitiveness, there is still a long way---must decrease one level for the cost. At present there are many projects which utilize the solar pond to generate electricity in USA and other countries. On the side of the Dead Sea, there is a 7000 square meters of experimental solar pond which built in 1979, it heats for a 150 thousand watts generator. The American plans to build a solar pond by 8.3% area (about 8000 square kilometers) of the salt lake and heats for 600 megawatt generator. In June this year, the specialists of American radio physics announced that they had been began to build“The first small experimental”industrial solar power station in the mountains of the country. It is not new for the turbine of this power station used, but used the turbine which life time has been expired and taken down from helicopter. The installed power is only 100 thousand watts, but the generating cost only 0.5 cents per KWH, the efficiency can reach to 40%~50%.

Russian scholar also made remarkable progress in the study of solar pond. One company combined its own developed solar water-jet propeller and the cold-jet propeller with the solar pond projects. Set up the ice trough for the solar pond and other facilities and had designed the new solar pond that suitable for peasant family. To this design that six to eight people of a peasant family build 70 square kilometers solar pond can satisfy the yearly electricity demand of 100 square kilometers housing. Another research institute put forward the design ideas of combined solar pond power station, namely synthetically utilize to the solar, the geotherm and the bedroom waste heat by the technology of heat pump and heat pipe, to reduce greatly the solar generating cost, in the north Caucasus can compete with the thermal power station, and available all the seasons, can be used for air-condition in summer and heating in winter.

For the countries which lack of freshwater resources, the solar pond has another rare advantage, According to specialist estimates, if build an area of 2163 square km, 1.2 meters deep solar pond in the shallow coastal area, it can heat for a 10 gigawatts generator units and can produce 2 cubic kilometers fresh water each year.

At present, some advanced countries in the Europe and America widely carry out“Photoelectric glass curtain wall products”,this is a new ecological building material that seal the solar conversion silicon in the double-layer tempered glass (such as sandwich glass) and securely convert the solar energy into electricity. America‘s "photovoltaic building plans", Europe‘s "millions of roof photovoltaic plan", Japan‘s "Asahi plan" and China‘s "Bright project" will become a wave of enthusiasm for development and application of energy-efficient ecological building material in the building field and greatly promote application of the solar in the new building materials.

In the developing countries, also actively develop solar utilization, such as the Philippine government had awarded the first solar plan in 1999, with the help of Australian government“overseas aid project”,installed 1000 solar systems in 263 communities across the country At present, the Philippine government is carrying out the world‘s largest solar application plan. The whole plan cost $48 million, is the largest solar plan in the world so far. The solar generation plan is divided into two phases, In addition to dwellings, favored group also include 25 irrigation systems, 97 water purification and distribution system and distribution system, 68 schools and community centers and 35 clinics.

         By this token, Mankind‘s dream solar era actually upon us, including collect solar energy in the space, transmit to the earth and turn into electricity to solve the energy crisis. With the development of Science and Technology, this is not a dream. The world‘s first solar power station built by National Aeronautic and Space Administration and National Energy Administration will be assembled recently and will soon begin to supply electricity to the ground.

In our country, solar application is always the hottest topic, after years of development, solar collector (include solar water heater) have been became one of the most extensive and rapid industries of solar application in domestic. The total sales reached 3.5 billion RMB in 1998 and had world‘s highest output. Our solar industry had began to operate. Chinese Academy of Sciences announced to start western action plan and will invest 250 million RMB to carry out a research in two years, build several of solar power generation, solar heating, solar air conditioner and other demonstration projects.

At present the national Hi-tech Development Zone of Baoding, Hebei had already built the largest polycrystalline silicon solar battery production base of our country, this project integrated the solar batteries, components and application systems, can reach a capacity of annual 3MW polycrystalline silicon solar battery after the first-stage project finished. Filled a number of gaps in solar development and application of our country and will greatly promote production of solar battery with low iron glass and sales market. But on the whole analysis, domestic solar photovoltaic power generation systems due to a late start, especially solar battery development and production is still lags behind international standards, but on the whole still at an early stage of low output, narrow application surface, single products, lagging technology. After a rough statistics, at present only five polycrystalline silicon solar battery factories have been built in domestic. The annual output is about 4.5MW (Remark: 1MW=1000KW) the facilities still remain in the production line introduced. But many foreign companies have focused on more advanced development and production of film crystalline solar cells. The transfer efficiency of this new advanced film crystalline solar cell can reach 18.3% and increased three percentage points than current average transfer efficiency. According to insiders, the average transfer efficiency of solar battery is not high in China. The main reason is the low degree of special material localization. Such as packaging glass is totally dependent on imports, Low iron content of high transmittance substrate glass market still cannot meet the demand. Scientific payoffs have not yet been rapidly and completely transform to the industrial advantage.

Olympics in 2008, Beijing will be the largest showcase of solar application in our country,“New Olympic”will fully reflect new concept of“Green Olympics、Energy-Saving Olympics”. 80%~90% street lamps around Olympic arena will be planned to use solar photovoltaic technology; Use all-glass vacuum solar-thermal technology, supply 90% bathing hot water for the Olympics. During the Olympics at that time, we will see solar street lamps, solar telephones, solar mobiles, solar no-flush toilets and other applications of solar technology. Our life will fill the sunlight!