He said Britain was falling behind in the solar revolution, and building regulations should be altered so every new development was required to have solar electricity and water-heating panels.
Mr Hain, a former energy minister, was speaking at the opening in Wrexham, Clwyd, of a production line for photovoltaic panels used to produce solar electricity.
The production line at the Sharp factory will work around the clock to meet the demand from Germany and other European countries. The company said that to cope with the demand a second line would open in October, effectively doubling the factory's production.
Mr Hain said his cabinet colleagues were discussing the change in building regulations as part of the government's plan to catch up with the solar revolution in Germany.
Germany has increased its target of covering roofs in solar panels from 10,000 to 100,000, and spent £66m last year to get 121 megawatts of photovoltaic panels installed. Nearly all Wrexham's production will go there.
Although the UK has invested £25m in solar power- £9m this year - only 10 megawatts of electricity was produced in 2003, about the same as a small wind farm and only 1% of the output of the Sizewell nuclear power station in Suffolk.
Mr Hain said: "There is no doubt the Germans have stolen a march on us in a big way. I believe that we should change building regulations so that by law every new house and development in Britain should have photovoltaic electricity production and solar panels for water heating. I know that Patricia Hewitt [the trade and industry secretary] is keen on this, and we are talking to Gordon Brown and cabinet colleagues.
"This technology is the future. Let us put it this way, if we do not switch to green energy, then our whole future as a human race is in jeopardy, or even more simply, we are doomed."
Jeremy Leggett, chief executive of the company Solar Century, which designs solar energy systems, said he had twice as many clients wanting to install solar power in new developments than the government was prepared to support financially.
"This is an industry that needs support to get liftoff," he said. "We thought when the energy white paper was published two years ago that we would get it, but so far there has been a yawning chasm between their rhetoric and what they actually do."
Takashi Tomita, for Sharp, said: "The UK has been slow to embrace solar because, unlike us [Japan], you have oil. But you are a country of good traders, with plenty of sunshine at least in the south. You will realise the potential of solar."
