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Solar Cells, Automation and Green Jobs

Aside from its environmental benefits, solar vitality is frequently touted for its job creation potential. But for solar manufacturers themselves, machines — not employees — may be the key to their crave-term survival .

Take, for example, photovoltaic solar panels — the most proletarian form of solar technology. As Roger Efird, the managing chief honcho of the United States branch of Suntech Power , a solar animation company based in China, the process of making these cells is already in the main automated.

But, he added, the process of taking the individual solar cells and connecting them to frame a solar panel is sometimes done by machines, and sometimes by hand, depending on the troop and the factory.

According to Jesse Pichel, a clean tech analyst at Piper Jaffray, companies in developing countries (including China) typically rely on workers to dispatch this task, because human labor is frequently cheaper than automation technology. To interrupt competitive, therefore, manufacturers in Europe, Japan and the United States — where labor costs are significantly higher — will desideratum to employ more automation technology.

Source: New York Times