As the world's largest solar-panel producer for the last two years, China already is a major solar player. But now, some industry experts say, it's expanding from being mainly a solar-panel supplier to also becoming a substantial customer.

"China, which already is important in production, is also going to be a large solar market," Gerhard Stryi-Hipp, head of energy policy for the Fraunhofer-Institute for Solar Energy Systems, said last week at a roundtable to discuss trends in advance of the Intersolar North America conference next month. That's an exciting prospect, as China -- with its population of 1.3 billion -- is soon expected to overtake the United States as the largest energy consumer in the world.