One of the largest privately-owned conglomerates in China is poised to become a big investor in Spain's booming solar energy sector, joining other foreign and domestic players in the latest investment craze in Spain.

Chint, a big electrical engineering group with some $2bn in annual sales, told the Financial Times it was planning to take stakes in a number of solar farms and in a factory that makes solar panels in Murcia, in southern Spain. The factory and farms will use Chint's technology.