Shi Zhengrong

My mission was to reduce cost of generation from solar technology, so we have to believe the power of belief, okay? That's my personal slogan.

This is Dr. Shi Zhengrong.

He's a solar scientist and entrepreneur, sometimes called the father of China's modern solar industry.

In two thousand and one, he'd gone home to China after years spent abroad in Australia, where he'd been studying photovoltaic technology.

[gentle music] At Suntech, we are creating access to the world's most abundant energy source, from ten megawatts to one thousand megawatts in less than a decade.

The world's largest producer of crystalline PV modules.

And its founder, Shi Zhengrong, had become a multi-billionaire, China's richest man.

I started Suntech because I believe solar can provide radical and a practical solution to combat climate change.

So I, I, I got lucky because they interviewed me.

My, my first boss was Dr. Shi Zhengrong, right? So I joined the company.

He was my boss.

And-

Mm.

Um, but that, that was their strategy, was all the different thin-film technologies.

In 2000, Dr. Shi Zhengrong went to China to start Suntech, and his theory at the time was, let's just do the old-fashioned way and of using offcuts of silicon.

Uh, do it as cheap as we can and scale.