After Boom and Bust, Solar Power Has a Place in the Spanish Sun - NYTimes.com

... "Even though incentives can create bubbles and bursts, without them this industry won't take off," she [Cassidy DeLine, who analyzes the European solar market for Emerging Energy Research, a firm based in Cambridge, Mass] said. "The U.S. is really behind Europe on this, and if we wait until solar is cost-competitive on its own, we may miss the boat and an opportunity to shape the market."

The most robust Spanish solar companies survived the downturn, have restructured and are re-emerging as global players.

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... Experts predict that, possibly by next year, Italy will be the first place where solar-generated electricity will not need subsidies to compete with electricity from fossil fuel. Italy has abundant sun and sky-high energy rates, given that it imports most of its fossil fuel.

Even with the reduced incentives and local economic downturn, the solar industry gave Puertollano [Spain] something of a face-lift and, potentially, a new economic future. Research institutes there are developing cutting-edge technologies. Unemployment, though now up around 10 percent, has not returned to the 20 percent figure. The city is home to a number of solar businesses: a new 50-megawatt thermal-solar plant owned by the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola created hundreds of jobs. ...