Back in 2004, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer decided to invest in the solar industry because the tiny island nation anticipated trouble competing against larger countries as worldwide crude oil shortages grew.

In China the following year, a company that makes power tools and elevators expanded its solar division when the government began mandating solar power to clean up the country's polluted cities.

When both of those companies needed help getting into the solar industry, they turned to a New Hampshire firm for the equipment they needed and the training to use it. That business, GT Solar Incorporated in Merrimack, has grown six-fold since 2004, when it landed the Taiwan account - a $14 million deal that helped put the company on the world solar map.

Although the solar industry in the United States is still sputtering along, the idea of generating electricity by harnessing the sun has taken off overseas in the past five years. For GT Solar, the growing popularity of solar in other countries has transformed the business from a small startup company to a booming multimillion-dollar force in its industry.

When companies are looking to get into the solar industry, GT Solar technicians teach them how solar panels are made and prepare them to jump into the new industry, even if they have no prior knowledge of it, said GT Solar spokesman Fred Kocher.

"They need help doing it, and they've turned to us in a major way," said Kocher, who is also the president of the New Hampshire High Technology Council. "If you're a dentist from Greece, we can put you in the solar panel business from A to Z."

At GT Solar, engineers design and manufacture the machinery to turn uneven chunks of silver silicon into the smooth blue photovoltaic cells used in solar panels. When the sun hits the silicon photovoltaic cells, it creates a chemical reaction that sparks an electrical current. The panels are then wired to an inverter that turns the current into the type of electricity used in homes.

Since it landed the Taiwan deal, GT Solar has been selling the equipment to make solar panels faster than it can manufacture it. Revenue has increased from $9.5 million in 2004 to $58 million a year now, the workforce has grown from 35 employees to 110, and there are plans to double the size of its already sprawling manufacturing campus off Route 3 in Merrimack.

About 95 percent of the equipment manufactured at GT Solar is shipped out of the United States to dozens of countries around the world, including its largest markets now in China, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Taiwan, Kocher said.

The company was founded in 1994 by Kedar Gupta and Jon Talbott, when the men quit their jobs at a Nashua fluidics company and decided to start their own business. At the time, they saw an increasing market for silicon in the semi-conductor and solar markets. They started with just $1,000 and the idea for a special furnace for processing silicon and ran the business out of their basements until they opened their first official office in Nashua later that year. In 2003, they moved into a new 56,000-square-foot plant in Merrimack.

Company officials expect that their future will be even brighter, bracing for the time when solar power also catches on in the United States, Kocher said. Right now, roughly 1 percent of all the energy Americans consume is generated from renewable sources, and solar power represents just 1 percent of that, according to the Energy Information Administration.

One of the primary factors holding back the solar industry in the United States is the high cost homeowners must absorb if they want to install the equipment, said Tom Welch, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Energy. But the industry is teaming up with the government to change that, Welch said. The Department of Energy has proposed a $148 million project to fund research for lowering the cost of solar, Welch said. GT Solar is one of several companies already partnering with the government to develop photovoltaic cells made from cheaper silicon, Kocher said.

Solar systems cost between $20,000 to $40,000, depending on a household's energy needs. Some systems can completely eliminate the need for any electricity from a utility company; others choose to stay connected to their public utility's power grid because it can be cheaper.

In New Hampshire, there are roughly 100 solar rooftops that generate 162 kilowatts of electricity per year, according to a 2005 study done by the state Office of Energy and Planning. Nationwide, roughly 100,000 buildings are powered primarily by solar, according to the American Solar Energy Society.

Incentives other countries are using are starting to be adopted in the United States, Welch said. In Germany, a country where solar is now a major source of power, homeowners are given tax breaks and are allowed to sell excess electricity they produce back to their utilities. In the United States, the federal government passed a 30-percent tax break for homeowners who install solar power. Some states have also put policies in place to allow solar homeowners to sell excess electricity back to the power grid (New Hampshire is one of those states).

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