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Post by jeffolie on Dec 3, 2011 17:35:57 GMT -6
I have made many solar industry threads. I expect the US solar industry to collapse in 2013 to 2015. Why? Because as in Spain (see below piece) funding sources will decline under government changes. I use the little 'g' for US government because many types of governments here aid, buy, zone, subsidize the creation of solar. China's solar manufacturing will collapse if it does not find other place to export their panels or if their government decides not to buy their output. In the below piece Rios Renovables adapted to find other places to export their solar products and services. ============================ As Solar Sales Plummet in Spain, Ríos Renovables Heads Overseas When Adalberto Ríos founded Ríos Renovables two decades ago in the town of Fustiñana in northern Spain, he didn’t expect an airline to become a key part of his strategy. But as the company expands into new markets, such as Italy, Romania, and the U.S., to offset flagging sales at home, Adalberto and his chief executive officer, Ramón Tejadas, have spent countless hours on airplanes. And Ireland’s Ryanair (RYAAY), with cheap flights from the airport in nearby Zaragoza, has come in handy as the company seeks to cut costs. “We joke that we only go to those countries where Ryanair flies,” says Ríos. “We now travel pretty much every single week.” Founded in 1990 as an electricity systems installer, Ríos Renovables shifted to solar in 2004 when Spain introduced subsidies that promised a boom for renewable power. Ríos now develops, builds, maintains, and sells solar installations. The company, owned by Adalberto Ríos and his wife, Conchi Enrique, who is chief financial officer, enjoyed significant growth in Spain from 2004 to 2008. Then the solar bubble went bust as Spanish lawmakers cut subsidies and the world financial crisis hobbled growth. Spain saw new installations of 2,500 megawatts of solar capacity in 2008 and just 17 megawatts the following year, according to ASIF, a trade group of Spanish photovoltaic panel producers and related companies. ASIF forecasts 300 to 400 megawatts of installations this year. “The Spanish market is now really dry,” Tejadas says. “Sales in Spain are completely empty, and access to credit is limited, which affects not only us but also the funds that buy our parks.” The collapse at home spurred Ríos’s overseas push, which the company this year expects will help more than quadruple sales, to €200 million, from €46 million in 2010. Next year, Tejadas says, Ríos could see revenue of €350 million, with a profit margin of about 12 percent. “In this industry,” Tejadas says, “you have to be nimble. … At the end of the day, we spend more time abroad than at home.” Ríos has developed 40 megawatts of photovoltaic energy in Italy, or almost a third of the 125 megawatts it has built since its first solar installation seven years ago. Today, about two-thirds of the company’s 200 employees are in Italy. Ríos plans a similar push in Romania, where the company aims to develop 170 megawatts of solar by 2014. In the U.S., the company is in talks with investors for an $108 million, 16-megawatt solar park in Sacramento, Calif. “In each country you find new ways of working,” Ríos says. “The legal system, working hours, salaries, different ways of negotiating, the reliability. You need to adjust all the time.” Tricky Choices Ríos isn’t the only Spanish solar company that has looked abroad as the Iberian market has imploded. Madrid’s Solaria Energía & Medio Ambiente says it will make 80 percent of its sales this year in Italy, Germany, and Latin America, up from 15 percent two years ago. That’s smart, but it poses challenges for companies with little overseas experience, says Sean McLoughlin, vice president of Clean Technology Research at HSBC Bank (HBC) in London. “International expansion takes time, and dealing with local authorities in different countries involves finding the right people with local expertise,” McLoughlin says. “Given the rapidly falling tariffs in many countries, understanding which is the next market to get into can be tricky.” And it may be some time before the Spanish market bounces back, says Iván San Félix, an analyst at Madrid brokerage Renta 4. “The outlook for the solar industry in Spain isn’t pretty,” San Félix says. “It’s very expensive energy and relies heavily on government subsidies, which have been cut and may be reduced even further as part of austerity measures.” Ríos understands that geographic diversification alone isn’t enough, so the company plans to build 150 megawatts of wind projects in its home market over three or four years. In Italy, Ríos is in talks with partners to develop 100 megawatts of wind energy, Ríos says. In Romania, he is aiming to complete a project for 120 megawatts of wind energy in the next couple of years, and he says he’s looking into a 100-megawatt wind project in Mexico. The company is also planning a €2.5 million plant at its Spanish headquarters to produce light- emitting diode light fixtures for streets and public buildings as regional and local governments slash spending to meet deficit targets. Within two years, Ríos says, he expects that venture to provide nearly a third of total revenue. “When you’re in the middle of a huge crisis, you can’t just cry,” Ríos says. “We need to look for alternatives because it’s a whole different world.” www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-01/as-solar-sales-plummet-in-spain-r-os-renovables-heads-overseas.html
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Post by jeffolie on Dec 5, 2011 13:57:00 GMT -6
Other markets such as South America appear as new targets, now that America most likely will falter: =================================================== The landscape is ripe for renewables down Latin America way. . Renewables advocates warn that if Congress doesn't provide incentives, the U.S. will lose an enormous greentech opportunity to China. Germany and Japan are also reaching for the renewables gold ring, and other EU and Asian nations are rapidly growing new energy economies. And multinational developers, weary of fighting U.S. policy and regulatory resistance, are starting to take note of untapped renewables riches in Latin America's emerging economies. In both wind and solar, Latin America has “an enormous resource potential,” according to Global Energy Network Institute (GENI) President Peter Miesen, as well as “policies in place” to drive development. There is already incipient growth, Miesen said in an Agrion Global Network for Energy presentation. In addition, established manufacturers and developers, especially those in Spain who share both a language and a cultural history, may have a unique opportunity in Latin America. He was suggesting, but did not name, Spanish multinational renewables powerhouses like Iberdrola, Gamesa, and Acciona. more .... www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/renewables-south-of-the-border/
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 13, 2012 14:12:50 GMT -6
another approach for solar's coming collapse in America comes from politics ... Republican campaign politics Obama's close ties to solar and scandals has Republicans opposing solar funding. After the 2012 general elections, I doubt solar projects will thrive with a Republican sweep. ========================================= New documents show high-risk concern behind DOE loan guarantees other than Solyndra, Issa pushes for answers Newly surfaced confidential documents show credit agency Standard and Poor’s considered Beacon Power — a now-bankrupt green energy storage company — a risky investment, even with the $43 million loan guarantee President Barack Obama’s Energy Department was planning to, and eventually did give the company. The documents, first obtained by CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, show how the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Jonathan Silver — the now-former loan guarantee program administrator – asked Standard and Poor’s to conduct a credit analysis prior to investing taxpayer money in Beacon Power. Silver resigned in mid-October 2011 as congressional inquiries into the DOE loan guarantee program heated up following the loss of $528 million of taxpayer money to solar panel manufacturer Solyndra when it went bankrupt. Solyndra received the first-ever loan guarantee under the program, and was the first to go bankrupt. At least four more loan guarantee recipients have filed for bankruptcy in Solyndra’s wake, and other recipients have shown signs of financial weakness. In the case of Beacon Power, even if the company ended up receiving the DOE loan guarantee, Standard and Poor’s analysis indicated it still wouldn’t be a smart investment. The credit agency’s ratings services division assigned Beacon Power a “CCC+” Final Rating. Standard and Poor’s defines a “CCC” rating as “currently vulnerable” and “dependent upon favorable business, financial, and economic conditions to meet its financial requirements.” California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is one of the leaders in Congress spearheading investigations into the DOE’s loan guarantee program. On Friday morning, Issa released a letter he sent to Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Jan. 3 demanding answers. Issa’s letter requested documents detailing how and why the DOE approved Beacon Power’s $43 million loan guarantee despite Standard and Poor’s “CCC+” rating, which falls below the DOE’s own required “BB” rating for a company to qualify for taxpayer assistance. Additionally, Issa requested Chu provide information on every company that was given a rating during the loan guarantee process. That letter gives Chu until 5 p.m. next Tuesday, Jan. 17, to respond. Issa also released a second letter he sent to Chu about another company that received a loan guarantee, Nevada Geothermal. The company received a $98.5 million partial loan guarantee purportedly to refinance its Blue Mountain Geothermal Project. The company was apparently going to use that partial loan guarantee to refinance a loan it had from financial firm TCW through another firm, John Hancock. Issa points to documents from the Energy Department and internal documents from Nevada Geothermal that illustrate the company never planned to use the taxpayer funds to finance its project. Nevada Geothermal, instead, according to Issa, planned to bail itself out with the taxpayer funding because it was about to default on its TCW loan. Issa gave Chu until Jan. 25 at 5 p.m. to respond to his specific questions and requests for documents about Nevada Geothermal. “American taxpayers continue to foot the bill for this administration’s poor choices,” Issa said in a statement. “The Department of Energy has engaged in reckless speculation that has led to the squandering of taxpayer dollars. The American people have a right to know how and why these decisions were made.” The Department of Energy considers the criticisms of the loan guarantee program baseless. “When Congress established this program, it recognized the risk of investing in innovative technologies and accounted for that risk in the budget, which is why they set aside $2.4 billion to cover potential losses in our total loan portfolio,” DOE spokesman Damien LaVera said in an email to The Daily Caller. “As independent analysts like Bloomberg Government have noted, even if all of the riskiest manufacturing projects supported under the program defaulted, there would still be $446 million left over in that reserve. When it comes to clean energy, we have a choice to make. We can concede the race to countries like China, or we can compete in the global marketplace – creating American jobs and selling American products.” In an October 2011 blog post, the DOE points out that Beacon’s loan guarantee was for a Stephentown Regulation Services, LLC. Though the company is bankrupt, there are cash reserves and proceeds from the plant the loan guarantee was creating that have been set aside as collateral. As for Nevada Geothermal, the DOE said in another October 2011 blog post that the company “has been consistently making its payments on time and in full,” and projects that it will continue being able to move forward. dailycaller.com/2012/01/13/new-documents-show-high-risk-concern-behind-doe-loan-guarantees-other-than-solyndra-issa-pushes-for-answers/
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 13, 2012 18:14:32 GMT -6
"Who Will Survive the Coming Solar Energy Meltdown" ? LOL ... to me this is a trick question: noneThe piece does highlight, identify the main thrust and parts of what I have been posting for 2 months now: dependence on govt subsidities that will disappear dooms solar in America. I posted long ago that solar corporations, solar energy producers, individual utilities, energy agencies have been screwed in Europe by relying on the promises that have been broken, reneged in different countries to maintain the flow of money for creating solar products, solar energy that is sold to utilities, solar subsidities for solar users, etc. Spain probably was the poster child for setting up a "the bigger they are the harder they fall" impact on fools that believed they could trust Spains promises. ===================================== Who Will Survive the Coming Solar Energy Meltdown Wednesday, 11 January 2012 “Without these subsidies … ‘On-grid PV,’ would be virtually non-existent. It only exists because the solar industry lobbied government officials to compel citizens to purchase this otherwise non-economic energy source.” “Included in the list of failed solar companies is Solon of Germany whose corporate slogan was ‘Don’t Leave the Planet to the Stupid.’ Fortunately for taxpayers, it appears Solon will be leaving the planet.” A recent Wall Street Journal article, Dark Times Fall on Solar Sector (December 27, 2011), surveyed the latest solar industry fallout, as well as overviewed the financial condition of the surviving companies. But the article seems to mistakenly equate the fallout to viability as if better profits would mean sustainability. The industry is not viable, but this is unrelated to the recent fall-out. The industry was growing and profitable in the recent past and was equally non-viable then. The difference is that with profit-enabling government subsidies intact, many established U.S. and European manufacturers are now competing with China. And they cannot compete. Risky Business There is a measure of justice in this recent turn of events. The old adage “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword,” comes to mind. In this case, one might say, “the industry that lives by government intervention dies by government intervention.” The U.S. solar industry has seen remarkable growth in the past six-to-eight years, principally on the backs of taxpayers and ratepayers who have been forced to shoulder a significant percentage of the cost of these solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to make them appear financially viable as on-grid resources. The solar industry has amassed a ridiculous collection of additive subsidies, which total upwards of 80 to 90% of the total lifecycle cost. They have lobbied every conceivable legislative body to garner special hand-outs for installing the systems and production subsidies (Net Metering) for operating the systems. This industry is artificial. Without these subsidies this market segment called “On-grid PV” would be virtually non-existent. It exists only because the solar industry lobbied government officials to compel citizens to purchase this otherwise non-economic energy source. In fact, they did such a good job of creating an enormous demand, that it attracted the attention of manufacturers and governments around the world, governments whose only subsidy is perhaps favourable lending to those companies that wish to sell into this artificial marketplace. Global Subsidies, Calls for Protectionism So now those same solar companies, which lobbied so heavily to plunder the public coffers, are through some grand act of justice being forced out of the business by Chinese manufacturers, who can produce panels at much lower cost. This industry built on government intervention in the marketplace is now dying because of possible Chinese government intervention in the marketplace. I call that just deserts. So what is the response of the U.S. solar industry? It’s mixed, but continues on the same self-serving path it has followed. Some panel manufacturers are trying to block solar imports from China, which leads me to believe they’re not really that concerned with green-house gas emissions after all. Solar installers are against the restrictions, because the cheaper panel prices are increasing the sales of PV systems and they’re as happy as ever to continue riding the subsidy gravy train. Both segments are guilty of participating in a massive plunder of public and private moneys. It is almost comical watching manufacturers and installers fight over the import restriction policy. The manufactures want the restrictions so that they won’t have to compete against the low-cost panels from China, and the installers like the low prices so they have more business, thus showing little concern for the U.S. manufacturers who created the subsidies in the first place. Is there no honor among the plunderers? The oversupply of panel production is the direct result of government subsidies for solar. The article, in part, credits the oil price boom for the investment surge, but solar is not a substitute for oil. Installing solar panels does not reduce our oil imports. Solar PV offsets electricity and only about 1% of our electricity is made from oil, so I can’t believe investors invested in solar in response to high oil prices, nor for the reason of climate concerns, since solar is a very expensive means of reducing GHG emissions. Reality Check Needed It is far more reasonable to assume that investors invested simply based on a belief that subsidies and mandates would continue for many years. The subsidies created an artificial demand, which those investing in the industry surely understood was unsustainable. But apparently they did not correctly foresee the competition. And fortunately for the taxpayers, who were helpless against the massive lobbying efforts of the industry, the Chinese manufacturers have come to the rescue. So if we’re being forced to buy panels, at least we can buy less expensive ones. The best possible outcome for the U.S. taxpayers at this point is: 1) those companies most responsible for the solar subsidies lose interest because of the competition, and 2) there is a widespread realization that our utility mandates are accomplishing little except supporting the Chinese solar panel manufacturing industry. Hopefully, these two outcomes will result in a shuttering of the political forces sustaining the subsidies and the subsidies will finally end. PV Grid Parity: Still Illusory One other point worth noting about this article is that the cost of PV is finally down to about $1/watt, which is the price many in the industry claimed was the price needed for solar to reach grid parity without subsidies. Well, $1/watt is finally here and solar is still far from grid parity. The truth is even if China could sell panels to installers for 1¢/watt, the systems would still be too expensive. Even with free PV, the cost of installation, mounting structure, inverters, wiring, etc. make the systems financially unsustainable. The article concludes with the statement that “as technology advances and costs drop, solar-panel makers can supply power without a need for heavy government subsidies.” This leaves the reader some hope that on-grid solar PV will wean the world off fossil fuels, but this is wishful thinking. There is no guarantee that the prices will ever reach the point of grid parity without subsidies. PV would reach grid parity if the total installed cost plus the net present value (NPV) of the operations and maintenance cost were at or below about $1/watt. But given that the PV panels alone cost $1/watt, and the total system cost for utility scale PV arrays is still $3.75/watt not including the NPV of O&M costs, I don’t see on-grid PV as a rational bet. Unless of course, one gets to bet with other people’s money and can ignore the moral implications. Perhaps it will someday be necessary to wean ourselves off fossil fuels for reasons of supply limits or environmental issues. If that happens, normal market forces will rebalance both the supply and demand of energy in logical and rational ways. Till then we’ll just have to suffer through yet another economic bubble created by government intervention in markets. Will we never learn? As a final note, included in the list of failed solar companies is Solon of Germany whose corporate slogan was “Don’t Leave the Planet to the Stupid.” Fortunately for taxpayers, it appears Solon will be leaving the planet. oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Who-Will-Survive-the-Coming-Solar-Energy-Meltdown.html
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jan 14, 2012 0:31:41 GMT -6
But the article seems to mistakenly equate the fallout to viability as if better profits would mean sustainability. The industry is not viable, but this is unrelated to the recent fall-out. The industry was growing and profitable in the recent past and was equally non-viable then. The difference is that with profit-enabling government subsidies intact, many established U.S. and European manufacturers are now competing with China. And they cannot compete. Easy problem to fix: 200% Tariffs on Chinese imports. Problem solved. At least then, solar would only have to compete with current oil production and domestic alternate energy production. I don't think solar can provide the quantity of power to displace most of our traditional, non-green sources. But it can provide some, and every little bit helps. As far back as 17 years ago, solar could easily provide enough energy to provide hot water to large (low-priced) apartment complexes. I know this because I lived in one of them. We do need to stop subsidizing it. But we should not let low-wage foreign producers simply displace American producers. Let American solar compete with oil and domestic energy production, without foreign competition. Then we'll see whether it truly is "economical." I call it criminal conspiracy by Corporate America and Congress. Either ban foreign producers from the US market, or impose exorbitant tariffs on foreign imports. Let US producers sink or swim based on domestic competition only--not foreign competitors using starvation-wage workers. That's exactly what they should do. And all the "green" energy supporters should advocate for that as well. Wrong. It's only criminal for the installers to fight against the import restrictions--which keep Americans from losing jobs to cheap foreign labor. The installers should be tarred-and-feathered for their greedy, self-serving, anti-American advocacy. What in the hell has gotten into this country and this government, that they don't believe in protecting fledgling American industries. This kine of protectionism has been US Government policy since this country's inception (at least until the last 30 years--when me-first, greedonomic policies became the new rage).
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 14, 2012 10:32:09 GMT -6
But the article seems to mistakenly equate the fallout to viability as if better profits would mean sustainability. The industry is not viable, but this is unrelated to the recent fall-out. The industry was growing and profitable in the recent past and was equally non-viable then. The difference is that with profit-enabling government subsidies intact, many established U.S. and European manufacturers are now competing with China. And they cannot compete. Easy problem to fix: 200% Tariffs on Chinese imports. Problem solved. At least then, solar would only have to compete with current oil production and domestic alternate energy production. I don't think solar can provide the quantity of power to displace most of our traditional, non-green sources. But it can provide some, and every little bit helps. As far back as 17 years ago, solar could easily provide enough energy to provide hot water to large (low-priced) apartment complexes. I know this because I lived in one of them. We do need to stop subsidizing it. But we should not let low-wage foreign producers simply displace American producers. Let American solar compete with oil and domestic energy production, without foreign competition. Then we'll see whether it truly is "economical." I call it criminal conspiracy by Corporate America and Congress. Either ban foreign producers from the US market, or level exorbitant tariffs on foreign imports. Let US producers sink or swim based on domestic competition only--not foreign competitors using starvation-wage workers. That's exactly what they should do. And all the "green" energy supporters should advocate for that as well. Wrong. It's only criminal for the installers to fight against the import restrictions--which keep Americans from losing jobs to cheap foreign labor. The installers should be tarred-and-feathered for their greedy, self-serving, anti-American advocacy. What in the hell has gotten into this country and this government, that they don't believe in protecting fledgling American industries. This kine of protectionism has been US Government policy since this country's inception (at least until the last 30 years--when me-first, greedonomic policies became the new rage). I agree entire with your thinking and comment.... Unfortunately, I doubt the politics in the next few years will create the laws, actions, agencies administration of what should happen consistent with your well thoughtout approach.
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 27, 2012 14:51:55 GMT -6
China produced a solar panel glut ============================== China may double its installations of solar panels this year, absorbing excess production that depressed prices and margins in 2011, chief executive officers from two of the industry’s top five manufactures said. Suntech Power Holdings Co. CEO Zhengrong Shi estimated the nation may add 4 gigawatts or more of panels, and Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) CEO Jifan Gao expects 5 gigawatts. That compares with about 2.2 gigawatts installed in the country in 2011, more than double the capacity of the average nuclear reactor in the U.S. The cost of solar panels fell 47 percent last year as Chinese manufacturers led by Suntech boosted production, winning market share from Western rivals such as Q-Cells SE and First Solar Inc. With China’s government pushing to consolidate the industry, the remarks from Shi and Gao suggest rising demand may support the biggest panel manufacturers. “It’s a huge market,” Gao said through an interpreter in an interview at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “Excellent companies with good technology, balance sheets and also brands will win out. A lot of companies without those advantages will be taken away.” Those forecasts are more optimistic than the projections of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which expects Chinese installations of 3 gigawatts this year and world demand from 25.5 gigawatts to 32.8 gigawatts. Trina expects global demand of 30 gigawatts to 35 gigawatts. Solar Rebound Solar shares have rebounded in recent weeks, driven in part by politics in Germany, the world’s largest solar market. After adding a record 7.5 gigawatts of panels last year, more than double the government’s target, lawmakers proposed cutting subsidies. A meeting Jan. 25 ended without an agreement and solar stocks climbed. The Bloomberg Large Solar Energy (BISOLAR) index of 17 companies, which lost more than two-thirds of its value in 2011, gained 1.7 percent yesterday and has increased 20 percent this year. In New York, Suntech rose 2.7 percent and Trina by 5 percent. 30. An index of eight Chineses solar companies rose 5.4 percent, more than five times the pace of the NEX index of clean energy shares. In Britain, the government estimates that capping subsidies in December would have saved 1.5 billion pounds ($2.4 billion) over 25 years. A court ruled it illegal to end the support then, ahead of schedule, and developers are rushing to complete new solar plants that will earn the old tariff before officials decide when to scale them back. Chinese Demand Suntech’s view shows that growing demand in China may also drive a solar recovery this year. “I’m hearing a lot from on the ground in China about how hopping demand has been,” said Aaron Chew, an analyst with Maxim Group LLC in New York. “China could surpass Germany” as the world’s largest solar market. Prices of polysilicon, the raw material in most solar panels, rose in four of the past five weeks after falling 65 percent in 2011. The Chinese government is spurring clean energy to diversify away from coal, which fuels 70 percent of the economy and is blamed for pollution blanketing industrial areas from Hong Kong to Beijing. Renewables currently account for less than 1 percent of supply, which is growing faster in China than anywhere else in the industrial world, according to data from the oil company BP Plc. Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at New Energy Finance, said the forecasts assume China will meet and not surpass the government’s target to have 15 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2015. The estimates from Suntech and Trina suggest that China, like Germany, Spain and Italy, may have trouble keeping a lid on installations once developers start understanding how subsidies will apply to their projects. Supply-Side Push “Many other governments who have tried to limit their markets have failed,” Chase said in a phone interview from Zurich. “There could be a supply-side push that pushes this equipment out incredibly cheaply without the need for the federal subsidy.” Solar panel prices have fallen so quickly that the technology is near reaching parity with fossil fuels in terms of the ability to supply power to national electric grids at a competitive price, said Gao of Trina. ‘Grid Parity’ “We have confidence that we will reach grid parity in several years in China -- like in three to four years,” said Gao, adding that Trina had about 10 percent of its sales in China last year. “In places like Australia, this year they will reach grid parity. Next year, it will be Italy and in 2014, regions like California.” For now, falling prices are hurting companies throughout the industry. Trina cut its forecast for shipments last year along with First Solar, SunPower Corp., Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., Renesola Ltd. and JinkoSolar Holding Co. Gao also predicted consolidation in the solar industry, and said that while the 10 biggest panel makers now account for just over 55 percent of the market, by 2015, that proportion may reach more than 80 percent. “Although the industry faced some challenges, if you look at the trend, it’s growing,” Trina’s Gao said. “We expect that by 2015, the new installations that year will be about 50 gigawatts, so it’s constantly growing.” China, the manufacturing hub for seven of the eight biggest solar panel makers, until 2010 accounted for less than 3 percent of the market for photovoltaics, with 490 megawatts installed. Installations more than quadrupled last year. Shi of Suntech said China’s market was “exciting” and the market there this year could be “4 gigawatts or more.” Suntech is the biggest supplier of solar photovoltaic panels, and Trina is the fifth largest. www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-26/solar-ceos-predict-boom-in-china-will-ease-glut-in-2012-energy.html
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Post by jeffolie on Feb 6, 2012 13:18:33 GMT -6
The solar panel from our home solar electric system were removed today with the rest coming off tomorrow ... why? because we are getting a 50 year warranty, lifetime warranty roof installed with the solar electric system to be reinstalled afterwards. The 75% crash, decline in solar panel prices from their pre-China overwhelming the market prices drove out of business may manufacturers that were unable to cope. A bigger crash is coming ... as solar panels prices decline from supplying low income masses such as the below piece on India's crash American manufacturers will crash and go bankrupt again ... ================================ India's panel price crash could spark solar revolution 02 February 2012 by Michael Marshall SOLAR power has always had a reputation for being expensive, but not for much longer. In India, electricity from solar is now cheaper than that from diesel generators. The news - which will boost India's "Solar Mission" to install 20,000 megawatts of solar power by 2022 - could have implications for other developing nations too. Recent figures from market analysts Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) show that the price of solar panels fell by almost 50 per cent in 2011. They are now just one-quarter of what they were in 2008. That makes them a cost-effective option for many people in developing countries. A quarter of people in India do not have access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency's 2011 World Energy Outlook report. Those who are connected to the national grid experience frequent blackouts. To cope, many homes and factories install diesel generators. But this comes at a cost. Not only does burning diesel produce carbon dioxide, contributing to climate change, the fumes produced have been linked to health problems from respiratory and heart disease to cancer. Now the generators could be on their way out. In India, electricity from solar supplied to the grid has fallen to just 8.78 rupees per kilowatt-hour compared with 17 rupees for diesel. The drop has little to do with improvements in the notoriously poor efficiency of solar panels: industrial panels still only convert 15 to 18 per cent of the energy they receive into electricity. But they are now much cheaper to produce, so inefficiency is no longer a major sticking point. It is all largely down to economies of scale, says Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at BNEF. In 2011, enough solar panels were produced worldwide to generate 27 gigawatts, compared with 7.7 GW in 2009. Chase says solar power is now cheaper than diesel "anywhere as sunny as Spain". That means vast areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia could start adopting solar power. "We have been selling to Asia and the Middle East," says Björn Emde, European spokesman for Suntech, the world's largest producer of silicon panels. Over the next few years he expects to add South Africa and Nigeria to that list. The one thing stopping households buying a solar panel is the initial cost, says Amit Kumar, director of energy-environment technology development at The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India. Buying a solar panel is more expensive than buying a diesel generator, but according to Chase's calculations solar becomes cheaper than diesel after seven years. The panels last 25 years. Even in India, solar electricity remains twice as expensive as electricity from coal, but that may soon change. While the price drop in 2011 was exceptional, analysts agree that solar will keep getting cheaper. Suntech's in-house analysts predict that, by 2015, solar electricity will be as cheap as grid electricity in half of all countries. When that happens, expect to see solar panels wherever you go. www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328505.000-indias-panel-price-crash-could-spark-solar-revolution.html
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Post by jeffolie on Feb 7, 2012 15:24:39 GMT -6
The below piece presents India with a 15 Billion plan for solar and other alternative electricity projects ... ==================================== Power Finance Aims To Invest $42 Billion In 5 Years In India Electricity Sector February 06, 2012 NEW DELHI – Power Finance Corp. (532810.BY) plans to invest $42 billion by the end of March 2017 in India's power sector, in an effort to profit from increasing demand for electricity. According to government estimates, India's power sector will need $300 billion-o $400 billion between 2012-2017 to expand its generation capacity of 186.6 gigawatts. The government has set up institutions such as Power Finance Corp. and Rural Electrification Corp. Ltd. (532955.BY) to provide dedicated funding to power projects. "Whatever the problems in the conventional power business, it will continue to drive [Power Finance's] growth," Chairman Satnam Singh told reporters. "The government is taking up the problem of coal shortage at the highest level. I am hopeful of a solution that would boost the power sector." India is facing a coal shortage of at least 114 million tons for the fiscal year through March. This has pushed consumers such as power companies to import expensive coal, hurting their finances and increasing the risk of loan defaults. But Power Finance is optimistic about the sector's growth, and plans to raise INR400 billion in India and overseas in the financial year which will start on April 1. Power Finance has raised INR280 billion of its INR300 billion target for this fiscal year through March, Singh said. The company, which aims to raise up to $500 million overseas by the end of March, has sought the central bank's approval to raise cheaper funds of tenure less than the mandatory five years. The finance company disbursed INR254 billion as at Dec. 31. It aims to release INR350 billion to power projects this year and INR400 billion next year. The state-run company plans to increase its loan sanctions to renewable energy projects to INR15 billion in the year beginning April, from INR4.8 billion in the year through March 2011. This is because renewables give faster returns as they can start generation within a year of the start of construction. Singh said also that the company will invite bids next week for a partner to launch a fund of up to $1 billion to buy into power projects. A previous round of bidding saw only one company--Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd.--meeting its criteria. Power Finance aims to shortlist an overseas partner for expanding its consultancy business to other South Asian nations next year and list it on stock exchanges in the year through March 2014. Read more: www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/02/06/power-finance-aims-to-invest-42-billion-in-5-years-in-india-electricity-sector/#ixzz1ljWzSOWh
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Post by jeffolie on Feb 18, 2012 10:34:47 GMT -6
Federally driven desert and farm land conversions to solar farms has 2 fatal flaws: 1. dependency on getting federal energy cheap loans which now have stopped. 2. federal and state environmental requirements make suitable land very rare even in the giant Mohave Dessert: " ... the tortoise mitigation program. ... "Just take a look — there just isn't enough land for them to find and buy," she said. "It's the fatal flaw." =============================== Land speculators see silver lining in solar projects Remote, inhospitable desert land gains new value as developers seek sites for renewable energy. Industry observers caution that not every owner is going to make a fortune. ... Most of the utility-scale solar farms sprouting in the desert are on federal land, which companies lease for a nominal yearly rate. But some developers prefer private property, even at high prices, because public land carries a thick sediment of bureaucracy: a snarl of federal and state environmental laws that requires time-consuming and expensive analysis before the first shovel of dirt is turned. Private land carries few similar impediments. As long as the parcel holds no cultural resources or protected species, a solar developer can move quickly and avoid costly construction delays. Solar companies covet private land for another reason. If a renewable energy project on public or private property compromises habitat for endangered species, the developer must buy biologically suitable private land to account for that loss. The Ivanpah Solar Project, for example, requires that Oakland-based developer BrightSource buy 7,000 acres to replace habitat for the threatened desert tortoise. Solar companies are reluctant to speak publicly about land prices, partly out of fear that they will inflame an already overheated market. Developers try to fly beneath the real estate radar, often buying contiguous parcels under different names or through third parties to avoid igniting a land rush. ... To meet the exceptionally high front-end costs, solar developers are dependent on federal loan guarantees, tax rebates and other subsidies to finance construction of multibillion-dollar solar plants. Renewable energy subsidies have been accelerated by the Obama administration, and the land-buying frenzy is in part caused by the approaching end of some federal incentives. The complexities involved in solar projects have made for an uncertain market. Larry Cullinane, who has been selling land near Hesperia since 1975, estimated that 90% of all solar land deals fall apart in the first year, leaving the seller to start over with little more than a deposit. "One of my clients has had close to $200 million fall out of solar contracts for various reasons," he said. "In most cases it's a financial scenario. Some of the owners get fed up with dealing with the solar developers." ... If large-scale solar projects continue to proliferate in the heart of the tortoise habitat, and with companies required to find two to three acres of habitat for each acre they displace, a reasonable question becomes whether enough private land exists in the Southern California desert to cover the loss. Less than 17% of the Mojave's 20 million acres is private property. Janine Blaeloch, director of the Western Lands Project, calls this the elephant in the room of the tortoise mitigation program. "Just take a look — there just isn't enough land for them to find and buy," she said. "It's the fatal flaw." www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-solar-land-20120218,0,1528083,full.story
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Post by jeffolie on Feb 18, 2012 15:01:42 GMT -6
Federally driven desert and farm land conversions to solar farms has 2 fatal flaws: 1. dependency on getting federal energy cheap loans which now have stopped. 2. federal and state environmental requirements make suitable land very rare even in the giant Mohave Dessert: " ... the tortoise mitigation program. ... "Just take a look — there just isn't enough land for them to find and buy," she said. "It's the fatal flaw." =============================== Land speculators see silver lining in solar projects Remote, inhospitable desert land gains new value as developers seek sites for renewable energy. Industry observers caution that not every owner is going to make a fortune. ... Most of the utility-scale solar farms sprouting in the desert are on federal land, which companies lease for a nominal yearly rate. But some developers prefer private property, even at high prices, because public land carries a thick sediment of bureaucracy: a snarl of federal and state environmental laws that requires time-consuming and expensive analysis before the first shovel of dirt is turned. Private land carries few similar impediments. As long as the parcel holds no cultural resources or protected species, a solar developer can move quickly and avoid costly construction delays. Solar companies covet private land for another reason. If a renewable energy project on public or private property compromises habitat for endangered species, the developer must buy biologically suitable private land to account for that loss. The Ivanpah Solar Project, for example, requires that Oakland-based developer BrightSource buy 7,000 acres to replace habitat for the threatened desert tortoise. Solar companies are reluctant to speak publicly about land prices, partly out of fear that they will inflame an already overheated market. Developers try to fly beneath the real estate radar, often buying contiguous parcels under different names or through third parties to avoid igniting a land rush. ... To meet the exceptionally high front-end costs, solar developers are dependent on federal loan guarantees, tax rebates and other subsidies to finance construction of multibillion-dollar solar plants. Renewable energy subsidies have been accelerated by the Obama administration, and the land-buying frenzy is in part caused by the approaching end of some federal incentives. The complexities involved in solar projects have made for an uncertain market. Larry Cullinane, who has been selling land near Hesperia since 1975, estimated that 90% of all solar land deals fall apart in the first year, leaving the seller to start over with little more than a deposit. "One of my clients has had close to $200 million fall out of solar contracts for various reasons," he said. "In most cases it's a financial scenario. Some of the owners get fed up with dealing with the solar developers." ... If large-scale solar projects continue to proliferate in the heart of the tortoise habitat, and with companies required to find two to three acres of habitat for each acre they displace, a reasonable question becomes whether enough private land exists in the Southern California desert to cover the loss. Less than 17% of the Mojave's 20 million acres is private property. Janine Blaeloch, director of the Western Lands Project, calls this the elephant in the room of the tortoise mitigation program. "Just take a look — there just isn't enough land for them to find and buy," she said. "It's the fatal flaw." www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-solar-land-20120218,0,1528083,full.story One of the DEADLIEST wind farms ... killing eagles at a fast rate Bad press like this makes the above fatal flaw more publicly noticed " ... 2. federal and state environmental requirements make suitable land very rare even in the giant Mohave Dessert: =============================== U.S. probes golden eagles' deaths at DWP wind farm The toll makes the Pine Tree site in the Tehachapi Mountains among the deadliest in California's wind farm industry. Activists say birds' behavior should be studied before erecting more sites. Wind turbines in operation in the Tehachapi Pass. The flight behavior and size of golden eagles make it difficult for them to maneuver through turbine blades. (Anne Cusack, Los Angeles Times / July 13, 2011) February 16, 2012 Two more golden eagles have been found dead at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power wind farm in the Tehachapi Mountains, for a total of eight carcasses of the federally protected raptors found at the site. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to determine the cause of death of the two golden eagles found Sunday at the Pine Tree wind farm, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles and 15 miles northeast of Mojave, said Lois Grunwald, a spokeswoman for the agency. The agency has determined that the six golden eagles found dead earlier at the 2-year-old wind farm in Kern County were struck by blades from some of the 90 turbines spread across 8,000 acres at the site. Those deaths give Pine Tree one of the highest avian mortality rates in California's wind farm industry. The death rate per turbine at the $425-million facility is three times higher than at California's Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, where about 67 golden eagles die each year. However, the Altamont Pass facility has 5,000 wind turbines — 55 times as many as Pine Tree. The flight behavior and size of golden eagles make it difficult for them to maneuver through forests of wind turbine blades spinning as fast as 200 mph — especially when the birds are distracted by the sight of squirrels and other prey. Golden Eagles are about 40 inches tall and weigh about 14 pounds, The DWP is developing a avian and bat protection plan that "will include measures for mitigating risks to golden eagles," utility spokesman Brooks Baker said. Critics say the problem is fundamental. "The increasing golden eagle mortality at Pine Tree clearly points to wind turbines built in the wrong location," said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. The utility needs to redesign its 250-megawatt Pine Tree network and Kern County needs to put a moratorium on construction of nearby wind farms to prevent deaths, Anderson said. Garry George, renewable energy project director for Audubon California, said the best solution is to devote years of research into golden eagles' behavior in an area before deciding where to erect turbines. "If you don't ... you wind up with a Pine Tree," George said. Killing golden eagles is illegal under federal law, but so far, federal authorities have not prosecuted any wind farm operators for violations. A prosecution in the Pine Tree case could force the booming alternative energy industry to revise its approach at a time when Kern County is drafting boundary maps for wind resource areas for dozens of proposed wind projects designed to generate electricity for Los Angeles County. A year ago, the Kern County Board of Supervisors adopted a renewable energy goal of having 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy production by 2015. Los Angeles has a renewable energy goal of 35% by 2020. A coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Defenders of Wildlife recently sued Kern County to block construction of the proposed North Sky River and Jawbone wind energy projects, which would operate on 13,535 acres of mountainous terrain adjacent to Pine Tree. According to the lawsuit, the projects would have an unacceptable effect on protected bat and avian species, including the golden eagle and the rare and protected California condor, and on an important avian migratory corridor. www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-eagles-20120216,0,4764344.story
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Post by jeffolie on Feb 21, 2012 15:35:22 GMT -6
At this level, solar panels from Asia's mainland and free China have broken below the seemingly impossible to reach $1 per w now selling at half that barrier below 50 cents per w. Chinas now dominate and produce panels, modules that no other country can compete with from Chinas goverment subsidized research and development into the methods of production. Preditory dominance such as Chinas will last for a generation before research funding trickles into other methods of solar panels, modules production. No green jobs will be created in America nor Europe producing solar panels for a decade or more most likely as long as the political arena remains friendly to the Chinas exporting panels. My prediction of a crash for 2013-15 in American solar manufacturing seems destined to come true sooner than that as long as voters support the free flow of imports to overwhelm the smallest value of merely researching and producing panels in America. ============================== Solar cell price steadies at US$0.50/W Nuying Huang, Taipei; Jackie Chang, DIGITIMES [Monday 20 February 2012] To reflect rising costs, solar cell makers have been holding prices at around US$0.50-0.55/W. Distributors in Europe continue to issue orders to Taiwan-based solar firms despite snows affecting installations. Shipments in February are expected to reach a peak, said industry sources. Despite the fact that the price of solar cells has increased to US$0.50-0.55/W, it is still too low for Taiwan-based solar cell makers to make profits. Industry sources indicated that for large orders, the price is generally around US$0.48/W. Nevertheless, orders have been flowing in steadily and the price has been stable, these are good signs for solar cell makers. Capacity utilization rates of tier-one solar cell firms are higher than tier-two firms, added industry sources. Compared with supply, demand is still limited. Hence the firms that obtain orders have experiencing full capacity while others suffer. www.digitimes.com/news/a20120220PD203.html
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Post by jeffolie on Mar 9, 2012 10:51:18 GMT -6
GLUT The market forces of supply and demand continue to be impacted significantly by governments ... China the supplier, the West the buyers China, the supplier essentially created an oversupply The West the buyers essentially created a over incentivized set of buyers China has not backed off making supply. The West has significantly backed off some incentives, money for buyers. The end result: a glut ... my view: US solar collapse 2013 to 2015. ========================== Solar Suppliers’ First-in-Decade Sales Drop to Feed Glut: Energy Mar 9, 2012 Fewer solar panels will be installed this year as the first drop in more than a decade worsens a glut of the unsold devices that’s already slashed margins at the top five manufacturers, an analyst survey showed. Homes and businesses will put up 24.8 gigawatts of solar panels worldwide, according to the average of six forecasts compiled by Bloomberg News. That’s equal to the power of about 20 nuclear reactors and down 10 percent from the 27.7 gigawatts added last year. Installations have grown 61 percent a year on average since 1999, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates. Solar Suppliers’ First-in-Decade Sales Drop to Feed Glut Qilai Shen/Bloomberg Employees assemble photovoltaic panels at Suntech Power Holdings Co.'s factory in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China. Employees assemble photovoltaic panels at Suntech Power Holdings Co.'s factory in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg The decline would be the first since Germany began offering premium rates for solar power in 2004, opening the way for mass, utility-scale installations. It will exacerbate price-cutting and a surge in inventories that last year forced Solyndra LLC into bankruptcy, prompted SunPower Corp. to seek a buyout and gutted margins at top manufacturers led by Suntech Power Holdings Co. and First Solar Inc. “Overcapacity has been an overhang for this industry, and with Germany tightening it doesn’t seem like it will ease,” said Amir Rozwadowski, an analyst at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. “It’s difficult to assess where there’s a significant push-out that would lead to accelerating demand, given the anticipated decline in Europe.” Germany and Italy, the biggest photovoltaic markets, cut subsidies to curtail a boom last year, helping depress prices for panels by more than 50 percent. The capacity of factories to produce photovoltaics may top 38 gigawatts this year, 53 percent more than the median demand forecast, according to New Energy Finance estimates. The London- based research company expects installations to slip this year to 24.6 gigawatts. That overcapacity dissolved margins of as much as 30 percent that the biggest solar manufacturers enjoyed two years ago. Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) said Feb. 23 its gross margin was 7.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, down from 31 percent a year earlier. Suntech, the world’s biggest solar company, said its gross margin fell to 9.9 percent in the most recent quarter from 17 percent. The Bloomberg Large Solar Index tracking 17 manufacturers lost 68 percent of its value last year, led by drops at Hanwha SolarOne Co. and Renesola Ltd. (SOLA) of China and Conergy AG of Germany. This year, the benchmark has gained 13 percent, led by Renesola and Conergy. China may double its installations this year, absorbing some of the excess production, according to Suntech and Trina. The two companies in January said they expect the nation to add 4 gigawatts to 5 gigawatts of panels this year compared with 2.2 gigawatts in 2011. Chinese Demand That’s led some manufacturers to forecast more deliveries. Trina, China’s third-biggest panel maker, expects shipments to increase by as much as 39 percent to 2.1 gigawatts this year. Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. expects to deliver as much as 2.5 gigawatts of panels this year, up 56 percent from 2011. Suntech said yesterday shipments may reach 2.5 gigawatts, a 19 percent increase. New solar capacity grew 49 percent in 2011 and more than doubled in 2010, according to New Energy Finance, which estimates the industry’s slowest growth since it started keeping records 13 years ago was a 5 percent gain in 2006. Without government incentives, even record low prices for solar panels may not be cheap enough to encourage solar farm developers and homeowners to install them in the volumes needed to work through the glut, said Rozwadowski, the most pessimistic analyst in the survey. He expects installations to drop to 20.7 gigawatts. Incentive to Install In the U.S., subsidies are disappearing after Solyndra filed for protection from creditors in September, triggering criticism of President Barack Obama, who approved government- backed loans for the company. While Obama wants to renew tax credits supporting renewable energy, congressional Republicans have criticized support for Solyndra and probed decision-making regarding the loans. Germany, the biggest solar market, said Feb. 23 that it will reduce the premium rates it pays for solar power on March 9, with more cuts set to come monthly starting in May. Developers installed a record 7.5 gigawatts of panels there last year, more than double the government’s target. The most optimistic forecast, from Maxim Group LLC, calls for 29.7 gigawatts of solar installations this year. That would be a gain of 7.6 percent. Aaron Chew, a solar analyst at Maxim in New York, said price declines aren’t enough to support a surge in demand early this year. Possibility for Gains “It sucks the wind out of the argument that there is going to be a first-quarter demand bubble,” Chew said. “Module prices are probably going to go down this year. How good could conditions be if pricing continues to drop?” Some manufacturers are already planning for reduced demand this year. First Solar Inc. (FSLR) said Feb. 28 that it’s halting four production lines at its Frankfurt-Oder, Germany, plant for as long as six months. Factory-utilization rates for the largest thin-film solar producer will be 60 percent to 70 percent this year, down from a December forecast of 80 percent, and 2012 production will be 1.5 gigawatts to 1.8 gigawatts of panels. “Any reduction in demand right now anywhere is the last thing manufacturers want,” said Shayle Kann, an analyst at GTM Research in Boston. “The less exposed you are right now to Germany the better off you are.” He expects 27.5 gigawatts of panels installed worldwide this year, about the same as in 2011. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates 20.8 gigawatts, while HSBC Holdings Plc forecasts 25.5 gigawatts. Kann said the industry may be able to count on stronger demand stimulated by the government in Beijing, which has “a vested interest in making those companies thrive.” To contact the reporter on this story: Ehren Goossens in New York at egoossens1@bloomberg.net www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-09/solar-panel-sales-seen-dropping-first-time-in-decade-feeding-glut-energy.html
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Post by jeffolie on Mar 12, 2012 8:21:35 GMT -6
The Year Solar Goes Bankrupt Get ready for a new round of green bankruptcies, as Europe trims back subsidies for solar companies and taxpayers lose their appetite for subsidizing green power. “The mini-bubble resulting from the rush to cash in on solar subsidies in European and U.S. markets is ending, as feed-in tariffs drop in Europe while loan guarantee and tax credit programs tighten up in the U.S.,” says a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch according to CNBC.com. Germany is dialing back subsidies for solar this month by 29 percent with subsequent decreases each month, according to Bloomberg.com. Rasmussen has recently released a survey of voters that show a diminishing number of voters support subsidizing the production of the Chevy Volt. Only 29 percent of likely voters agree with Obama’s latest proposal to include a $10,000 subsidy in the federal budget to support the purchase of every electric vehicle. The survey found that 58 percent oppose the plan, while 13 percent remain undecided. And make no mistake, without subsidies solar, electric vehicles, wind power and other alternatives remain a chimera. “Steven Cortes, CNBC contributor and founder of Veracruz Research, also sees solar stocks declining further and wonders about the impact of the recent natural gas boom on the sector. “’As much as I love sun, I hate the solar space. This is not a real business, it’s a political construct,’” Cortes said on Fast Money Wednesday. “’And they can’t compete with natural gas at these levels.’” According to the Associated Press the U.S. now has 2.433 trillion cubic feet in storage. “That figure is 48.3 percent more than the five-year average, the Energy Department said,” reports the AP. “Natural gas fell 3 cents to finish at $2.27 per 1,000 cubic feet in New York. The price has fallen about 27 percent this year and is at the lowest level in a decade.” Last week Abound Solar announced it would lay off half its workforce despite receiving a $400 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy last year. The rating agency Fitch’s hit Abound over failures to meet stated goals, old technology, calling the company “highly speculative” according to ABCNews. Reports ABC: It remains way too early to determine whether Abound is poised to follow the trajectory of the best-known solar manufacturer to receive a sizeable government loan -- Solyndra, the California firm that filed for bankruptcy in September after having burned through the bulk of its $535 million federal loan. Perhaps. However, there is an old saying in the market that the tape doesn’t lie. And the tape on solar companies is horrendous. In the second quarter of 2008 First Solar (Symbol: FSLR) briefly touched $300 per share. Today it trades at $27.49. That equals losses of about $24 billion in market capitalization in just four years. In April of last year Trina Solar LTD (Symbol: TSL) was trading just under $30 and is now trading at about $7.31. Earnings estimates have gone in the last few months from Trina losing about 17 cents per share for 2012 to losing about 63 cents per share. The Guggenheim Solar ETF (Symbol: TAN) has also moved down from around $300 per share in mid 2008, until it trades now at $27.02. And the fundamentals aren’t getting better for solar soon, because solar can’t compete with coal-fired or nuclear generated electric. “ Fewer solar panels will be installed this year,” reports Bloomberg “as the first drop in more than a decade worsens a glut of the unsold devices that’s already slashed margins at the top five manufacturers, an analyst survey showed... Without government incentives, even record low prices for solar panels may not be cheap enough to encourage solar farm developers and homeowners to install them in the volumes needed to work through the glut, said Rozwadowski, the most pessimistic analyst in the survey. He expects installations to drop to 20.7 gigawatts.” It’s important to note that the poor performance of the solar industry came at a time when government financial support has been at an all-time high world-wide. It only goes to show that politics and public policy are poor substitutes for free market economics. Expect the solar industry to continue to crash and burn as government money continues to dry up along with public support. finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/03/12/the_year_solar_goes_bankrupt/page/full/
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Post by graybeard on Mar 12, 2012 9:03:22 GMT -6
If gas is so cheap, and supplying the majority of our juice why haven't SC Edison prices fallen a lot? From a peak of maybe $.35/kwh, Tier 5 is now $.31, and that may be seasonal.
I'll buy solar when the payback gets short enough.
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Post by jeffolie on Mar 12, 2012 9:22:04 GMT -6
If gas is so cheap, and supplying the majority of our juice why haven't SC Edison prices fallen a lot? From a peak of maybe $.35/kwh, Tier 5 is now $.31, and that may be seasonal. I'll buy solar when the payback gets short enough. When I bought our solar home electric system 2 years ago because of high electric bill and a good resulting Return on Investment (ROI) our family consistented of 6 adults in our house (my sweet wife Olie and I plus our 4 adult children, 3 of which were attending college and studied late, all having computers). I expected a decline in our demand as some of our children moved out and just last month one moved out into her first real estate purchase, a condo near her work 2 miles from the ocean). So, our usage, demand did decline a little. SCE, Edison rates continuously increased over the last 2 years in significant parts from greed, California's new laws switching from gas, coal, etc to 30% alternate energy resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, etc. Do not under play greed and a close business relationship with regulators as lobbyists spending hits new records and not just in California. So, the continuosly increasing electric rates offset our reduced usage resulting in our theoretical electric costs increasing a lot, but not in reality because our home solar electric system provides enough electricity to keep our real electric bill down to just the monthly SCE administrative charge for solar of about $1.86 per month. At some point, most likely this year then SCE will be paying me for the net annual surplus electricity that I supply to the electricity grid from our home at a very insignificant price resulting in a small annual payment to our family.
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Post by jeffolie on Mar 21, 2012 16:52:03 GMT -6
The kiss of death to US solar manufacturing from Obama: US 2.9% and 4.73% tariffs China solar panels & cells too little and too late ; no jobs coming home as middle class skilled, professional, white collar service jobs are now being exported, outsourced. Obama's too little and too late US tariffs on China's solar cells & panels resulted China's happiness plus soaring stocks of exporters to the US. This reaction should tell one that Obama negotiated poorly resulting in at best some additional incoming revenue from the tariffs and at worst a Neville Chamberlain type of capitulation & appeasement [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain ] to bad actor China's evil trade practices that will encourage more agressive bad, evil exporting manufacturing in China and other exporting countries such as Brazil, Indoniesia, India, more dooming American based manufacturing to unfair competition & dumping leaving little hope of a jobs recovery in America from a return to the manufacturing sector which as declined from about 50% to about 22% of jobs leaving low paying services jobs. In another thread, I showed that skilled, professional, white collar service jobs are now being exported thanks to cheap internet communications and other countries low labor costs such as Polish accountants with with 4 year college degrees prices at American high school graduates salaries;outsourcing the middle class services, white colar jobs now faster in places at increasing speed and dooming a jobs recovery in America's services jobs for higher paid salaries. " ... On Wall Street, shares of Chinese solar panel makers soared, and there was a collective sigh of relief on the part of developers of solar panels in the U.S., who feared that large duties would undermine the surging growth in solar developments by sharply increasing global prices or triggering a trade war.... " ================================= China offers measured response to U.S. tariffs on solar panels March 21, 2012 Reporting from Beijing— China's state media said U.S. import tariffs imposed on Chinese solar panels are "sensible" and a "result of compromise" but warned that bilateral ties are still in jeopardy because of Washington's tougher stance on trade. A commentary published Wednesday afternoon by the official New China News Agency was the country’s first response to the U.S. Commerce Department’s decision Tuesday to slap tariffs of between 2.9% and 4.73% on Chinese solar panels because of illegal state subsidies. "The U.S. government's lighter than expected tariffs on China's solar panel imports reflects some degree of rationality, but it has to do more to keep bilateral trade ties from derailing," the commentary said. It continued: "Although the solar panel case has proven to be less devastating than expected, the U.S. government recently intensified shots against a range of Chinese imports, from rare earths to steel wheels, recalling the phantom of protectionism in an election year." Last week, the news agency similarly warned of a diplomatic backlash after Washington pressed Beijing to loosen its control of rare earth minerals through World Trade Organization. Liu Baocheng, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said the surprisingly low tariffs would have little effect on Chinese manufacturers and likely succeeded in cooling some of the trade tension between the world’s two largest economies. "I don’t think China will retaliate," Liu said. "They won’t politicize this issue. They'll probably play this down as a technical issue." That could change in mid-May, however, when the Commerce Department is expected to decide whether China is dumping solar panels in the U.S. market at prices below their production costs. The solar industry worldwide has been beset by overcapacity in China’s panel production sector. The U.S. government estimates that 95% of China’s solar panels are exported to countries with more favorable incentives. Prices for solar panels have nosedived, putting competitors in the U.S. and Europe out of business. China’s central government has acknowledged the problem, recognizing the proliferation of low-margin solar panel manufacturers undermines their ambitions to ramp up sustainable renewable energy sources. "We will prevent blind expansion in our capacity to manufacture solar energy and wind power equipment," Premier Wen Jiabao said in a speech last week at the annual meeting of the country's legislature. Huang Ming, chairman of Himin Solar Energy Group and a pioneer in the Chinese solar industry, said he expects half of China's solar panel producers to shutter in the near future. He also estimates that up to 95% are failing to turn a profit. Huang said his own company, which focuses on solar and thermal power, is comfortably profitable and is considering opening facilities in California, possibly in Glendale or San Francisco. But he disagreed with the idea that the expansion of the industry was driven by government subsidies. Instead, he said, manufacturers were driven by opportunity and ultimately found a way to produce efficiently, like so many other sectors before, undercutting one another. "Why are Chinese products so cheap? You can ask the same question in the textile industry, automobile industry and machinery industry," Huang said in a phone interview Wednesday. "It’s all the same." www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-china-solar-20120321,0,5138329.story =========== U.S. to impose tariffs on solar panels from China The Commerce Department, in its preliminary finding over illegal subsidies, said solar panels imported from China would face a duty of 2.9% to 4.73%, smaller than what some had hoped for Los Angeles Times March 20, 2012, 9:16 p.m. Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles— Ratcheting up the battle over a vital energy industry, the U.S. Commerce Department decided to impose tariffs on solar panels imported from China after concluding that manufacturers there received illegal government subsidies. The Commerce Department, in its preliminary finding over illegal subsidies, said solar panels imported from China — now dominating the U.S. market — would face a duty of 2.9% to 4.73%. The tariff is considerably smaller than what some had hoped for but nonetheless marks another step by the Obama administration to get tougher on trade with China. It also highlights efforts aimed at supporting U.S jobs and a renewable energy future. Additional tariffs could be imposed in mid-May when the Commerce Department is expected to determine whether China has been dumping the panels in the U.S. at below-cost prices. Some American lawmakers and solar firms hailed the finding on illegal subsidies, saying the new tariffs will help create a more-level playing field for the domestic solar market, which has been growing rapidly despite the bankruptcy of some panel makers. The high-profile failure of solar equipment maker Solyndra of Fremont, Calif., was attributed in part to a sudden influx of low-cost Chinese panels. The Commerce Department decision "is a signal that China's unfair trade practices in the solar energy industry may soon be remedied," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who heads a Senate Finance subcommittee on international trade. The senator recently released a report detailing the widening U.S. trade deficit with China on environmental goods such as solar panels. Gordon Brinser, president of SolarWorld Industries America, which with six other U.S. firms filed the trade case with the Commerce Department, said the decision would help restore fair competition and advance the U.S. solar industry's "reach for greater national energy, economic and environmental security." Experts, though, said the tariffs, which range from 2.9% to 4.73% to correspond to the amount of Chinese subsidies found, aren't big enough to have a major effect on the market. "This is a modest one that should be viewed as an indication that more is to come," said Tom Soto, co-founder and managing partner of Craton Equity Partners, a Los Angeles clean-technology fund. Although nobody knew how much in loans, land, tax breaks and other subsidies Chinese producers received from the government, the basic assumption had been that the total was large, at least in the double digits. "This really for the first time sheds light on the amount of support they give to the solar industry," said Rhone Resch, chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Assn. Based on the Commerce Department's findings, he said, the subsidies are "not very much." The tariffs brought statements akin to words of vindication from such Chinese firms as Suntech Power Holdings Co., the world's largest solar panel maker, with headquarters in Wuxi, China. On Wall Street, shares of Chinese solar panel makers soared, and there was a collective sigh of relief on the part of developers of solar panels in the U.S., who feared that large duties would undermine the surging growth in solar developments by sharply increasing global prices or triggering a trade war."I'm relieved the tariffs are as modest as they are," said Tony Clifford, chief executive of Standard Solar, a solar projects developer and installer based in Rockville, Md. He said he buys a majority of his panels from Chinese makers. But referring to the anti-dumping case, Clifford said: "We're still waiting for the other shoe to drop." Commerce Department officials said they had notified their Chinese counterparts Tuesday of the preliminary decision on illegal subsidies. There was no immediate comment from Chinese officials, but in the past, some have bristled at the threat of duties imposed on green-technology manufacturers that Beijing sees as crucial for its economic security. China controls about 50% of the U.S. market for solar panels. The Commerce Department said Chinese imports of solar panels totaled $3.1 billion last year, up from $640 million in 2009. Experts said the U.S. remained the leader in solar cell technology, but China has made significant strides in boosting its exports of both solar cells and panels — and drawing U.S. companies such as Applied Materials to set up major solar research operations in China. The new tariffs apply to solar panels and cells made in China, as well as panels made in other countries that have Chinese-made cells. For Obama, Tuesday's decision is the latest in a series of recent moves aimed at stepping up the pressure on China in an election year. Last week his administration took action with the World Trade Organization to press China to halt its export restrictions of rare earth minerals, which are crucial for such green technologies as hybrid vehicles and wind turbines. And earlier, Obama formed a new trade enforcement unit to crack down on violators, specifically naming China as a potential target. More recently Obama has come under fire from Republican opponents as oil prices have soared. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to travel to Boulder City, Nev., where he will visit the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility, the largest photovoltaic plant operating in the country. The president will highlight his efforts to expand renewable energy from sources like wind and solar, which his administration has supported with government investments. Chinese analysts have said such U.S. investments are essentially subsidies, not unlike the ones for which the Chinese have been under scrutiny. That's raised concerns that China could retaliate by imposing tariffs on U.S. goods to China, including certain solar products. "Within the clean-tech sector, there's always been this love-hate relationship with subsidies," said Craton Equity's Soto. Tuesday's decision, he said, "is clearly an indication that the governments of the United States and China need to have a frank and open discussion on what their relationship is going to be with respect to trade and on renewable technologies like solar." www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-solar-tariffs-20120321,0,5638526,full.story
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Mar 21, 2012 21:54:35 GMT -6
For Obama, Tuesday's decision is the latest in a series of recent moves aimed at stepping up the pressure on China in an election year. No, it was not. It was never aimed at "stepping up the pressure on China." To the contrary, it was a piss-poor attempt to appease critics of Obama's militant anti-American free-trade advocacy. And it was a gift to Corporate free-traitor campaign contributors. This latest farce has proven beyond doubt that Obama cares only about his rich campaign contributors, and nothing about American workers or the rest of the 99%.
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Post by jeffolie on Apr 3, 2012 11:19:17 GMT -6
building one of the largest solar arrays in the world in Riverside, CA: Solar Millennium bankrupt
==========================================
Solar-Project Developer Files for Chapter 11
April 2, 2012
Quickly running out of money, solar-project developer Solar Trust of America LLC filed for bankruptcy before it could finish a multibillion-dollar solar plant in California that was planned to generate electricity as one of the world's largest solar-power projects.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware on Monday after majority owner Solar Millennium AG S2M.XE -14.96%—now under the control of a German bankruptcy professional—stopped putting money into the company. The financial pipeline was cut short before engineers could begin operating the Blythe Solar Power Project, a 1,000-megawatt system with capacity to power 300,000 homes, according to the company.
Solar Trust executives had secured what it called "valuable" transmission rights to pump electricity into the grid from that project, which is located on 7,025 acres of Southern California's inlands about 150 miles from Riverside, Calif. But that project and others haven't been completed and aren't generating revenue, leaving its owners as the main revenue source.
The company filed for Chapter 11 protection Monday, the day after it was scheduled to make a $1 million rent payment to the U.S. Department of Interior for the acreage. Company officials said that the bankruptcy case would also protect the transmission-rights agreements it made with utilities.
"Without the [agreements], the Blythe Project would be unable to deliver electricity to market and would be rendered near, if not completely, valueless," said Chief Operating Officer Edward Kleinschmidt in documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.
Those rights enabled the company, through a subsidiary, to borrow more than $200 million from Southern California Edison Company, the company said in court papers. Most solar-panel developers have to pay for development costs themselves.
Southern California Edison is also financing $100 million of a second 4,300-acre project located near the flagship project.
A third project in Nevada hasn't progressed as far as securing transmission rights. That project is entangled in a lawsuit in Nevada state court from a minority shareholder, Global Finance Corp., which tried to block its sale last year.
Solar Trust executives are preparing to sell the company's assets at auction and already have interest from competitor NextEra Energy Resources LLC, which is building other major solar-panel plants nearby.
The company tried to sell itself last year to another German solar-power company, solarhybrid SHL.XE -4.76%AG. Solarhybrid executives blamed the deal's collapse on dwindling European subsidies for alternative energy.
Solar Millennium filed for Germany's equivalent of bankruptcy in December. Amid the economic crisis, European governments are slashing programs that once made it more affordable for residents and businesses to buy expensive solar systems.
The insolvency administrator put in charge of the company's bankruptcy case, Volker Boehm, has "ceased to provide any funding whatsoever" to the project, according to court papers.
Solar Trust was founded in 2005 by Solar Millennium and another German industrial heavyweight, Ferrostaal AG. Ferrostaal, which owns a 30% stake, stopped putting money toward Solar Trust two years ago, according to court papers.
Solar Trust owes about $20 million to unsecured creditors, according to court papers. The company's only loan debt of about $200,000 is owed to Citibank.
The company's headquarters are located in Oakland, Calif., according to its website. It has nine employees.
Copyright 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.
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Post by jeffolie on Apr 3, 2012 16:14:23 GMT -6
building one of the largest solar arrays in the world in Riverside, CA: Solar Millennium bankrupt ======== Solar Trust for America received $2.1 billion in conditional loan guarantees from the Department of Energy -- "the largest amount ever offered to a solar project," according to Energy Secretary Steven Chu -- for a project near Blythe, Calif., but declared bankruptcy within a year. ..." ....................................................... Solar-Project Developer Files for Chapter 11 April 2, 2012 Quickly running out of money, solar-project developer Solar Trust of America LLC filed for bankruptcy before it could finish a multibillion-dollar solar plant in California that was planned to generate electricity as one of the world's largest solar-power projects. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware on Monday after majority owner Solar Millennium AG S2M.XE -14.96%—now under the control of a German bankruptcy professional—stopped putting money into the company. The financial pipeline was cut short before engineers could begin operating the Blythe Solar Power Project, a 1,000-megawatt system with capacity to power 300,000 homes, according to the company. Solar Trust executives had secured what it called "valuable" transmission rights to pump electricity into the grid from that project, which is located on 7,025 acres of Southern California's inlands about 150 miles from Riverside, Calif. But that project and others haven't been completed and aren't generating revenue, leaving its owners as the main revenue source. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection Monday, the day after it was scheduled to make a $1 million rent payment to the U.S. Department of Interior for the acreage. Company officials said that the bankruptcy case would also protect the transmission-rights agreements it made with utilities. "Without the [agreements], the Blythe Project would be unable to deliver electricity to market and would be rendered near, if not completely, valueless," said Chief Operating Officer Edward Kleinschmidt in documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Those rights enabled the company, through a subsidiary, to borrow more than $200 million from Southern California Edison Company, the company said in court papers. Most solar-panel developers have to pay for development costs themselves. Southern California Edison is also financing $100 million of a second 4,300-acre project located near the flagship project. A third project in Nevada hasn't progressed as far as securing transmission rights. That project is entangled in a lawsuit in Nevada state court from a minority shareholder, Global Finance Corp., which tried to block its sale last year. Solar Trust executives are preparing to sell the company's assets at auction and already have interest from competitor NextEra Energy Resources LLC, which is building other major solar-panel plants nearby. The company tried to sell itself last year to another German solar-power company, solarhybrid SHL.XE -4.76%AG. Solarhybrid executives blamed the deal's collapse on dwindling European subsidies for alternative energy. Solar Millennium filed for Germany's equivalent of bankruptcy in December. Amid the economic crisis, European governments are slashing programs that once made it more affordable for residents and businesses to buy expensive solar systems. The insolvency administrator put in charge of the company's bankruptcy case, Volker Boehm, has "ceased to provide any funding whatsoever" to the project, according to court papers. Solar Trust was founded in 2005 by Solar Millennium and another German industrial heavyweight, Ferrostaal AG. Ferrostaal, which owns a 30% stake, stopped putting money toward Solar Trust two years ago, according to court papers. Solar Trust owes about $20 million to unsecured creditors, according to court papers. The company's only loan debt of about $200,000 is owed to Citibank. The company's headquarters are located in Oakland, Calif., according to its website. It has nine employees. Copyright 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Solar company bankrupt despite 'win-win' DOE loan In keeping with the recent trend of so-called green companies going into the red, another solar energy company supported by President Obama's top administration officials declared bankruptcy today. Solar Trust for America received $2.1 billion in conditional loan guarantees from the Department of Energy -- "the largest amount ever offered to a solar project," according to Energy Secretary Steven Chu -- for a project near Blythe, Calif., but declared bankruptcy within a year. It is unclear how much of the guarantee, if any, was actually awarded. Senior officials in Obama's administration had very high hopes for the Blythe project. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar attended the groundbreaking ceremony, which he described as "a historic moment in America’s new energy frontier" and "another important step in making America’s clean energy future a reality." Chu trumpeted at the time that Solar Trust would prove that "when we rev up the great American innovation machine, we can out-compete any other nation." The embarrassment should be bipartisan. "This is a huge milestone for our community," Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., said when the company received its loan guarantee. "I look forward to continuing my work supporting projects . . . that will harness our local energy resources and help reduce our nation’s dangerous dependence on unstable foreign oil.” Uwe Schmidt, chairman and CEO of the company, also argued that Solar Trust was good for the nation. He wrote last year that "the DOE loan guarantee is a 'win-win' for government and the companies involved and will not only advance the cause of energy independence but will create hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country." The bankruptcy makes Schmidt's attempt to rebuke DOE critics in the wake of the Solyndra bankruptcy particuarly ironic. "Despite the posturing and finger pointing, the American solar energy industry is alive and well," Schmidt wrote in an op-ed for the Huffington Post, before discussing his company's business plans. Referring to Solyndra, he lamented that "one company's bankruptcy has cast doubt on the credibility of a government program that is otherwise being administered with incredible efficiency." The list of bankrupt solar companies has grown since Schmidt scolded Solyndra investigators. How many more might go bankrupt? Secretary Chu won't say. campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/solar-company-bankrupt-despite-win-win-doe-loan/459621
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Post by jeffolie on Apr 17, 2012 9:00:01 GMT -6
The EU collapses GREEN POWER subsidities ... Spain accelerated solar and pulled the rug out, then all the other EU countries fell like dominoes over the last 18 months with Germany still slowly withdrawing supports. The EU crisis in my jeffolie predictions impacts American corporations which do business in the EU such as Green Power American corporation First Solar which now is laying off 30% worldwide or 2000 workers. "First Solar Inc. FSLR ... reduce the U.S. solar-panel maker's global work force by 30%, or about 2,000 positions ... it is clear the European market has deteriorated to the extent that our operations there are no longer economically sustainable ... " ============================================= First Solar Inc. FSLR +3.51% will close its Frankfurt, Germany, manufacturing operations and indefinitely idle four production lines in Kulim, Malaysia, as it looks to reduce costs amid a deteriorating solar market in Europe. Combined with other personnel reductions in Europe and the U.S., these actions will reduce the U.S. solar-panel maker's global work force by 30%, or about 2,000 positions. Shares were trading 4.1% higher at $21.68 premarket. The stock is down 38% so far this year through Monday's close. The company's earnings have mostly slumped over the past year as reduced government subsidies and heated competition forces most solar-panel producers to retrench. First Solar expects the restructuring initiatives to reduce costs by $30 million to $60 million this year, and by $100 million to $120 million a year afterward. The company will book restructuring and other related charges of $245 million to $370 million, and expects to record the costs primarily in the first quarter. "After a thorough analysis, it is clear the European market has deteriorated to the extent that our operations there are no longer economically sustainable, and maintaining those operations is not in the best long-term interest of our stakeholders," said Chairman and Interim Chief Executive Mike Ahearn. First Solar reported in February it swung to a fourth-quarter loss on write-downs and other charges as net sales climbed 8%. The company had also cut its 2012 revenue guidance, saying it would cut back production at its factories to match supply with weaker-than-expected global solar-power demand www.marketwatch.com/story/first-s....y-30-2012-04-17 ============================== (MarketWatch) — First Solar shares surged 10% Tuesday after the struggling company announced a draconian overhaul of its operations, capping a rally by more traditional energy stocks that drew strength from firmer oil prices. First Solar Inc. FSLR +10.28% said before the market open it plans to shut its plant in Frankfurt, Germany, idle indefinitely four production lines in Malaysia, and eliminate 2,000 jobs, or roughly 30% of its work force. Read about First Solar's restructuring plan. Click to Play Argentina plans to nationalize YPFPresident Cristina Kirchner said she would nationalize Argentina's largest oil-and-gas company, YPF. The move fired up a battle with the company's Spanish controlling shareholder and the Madrid government. The move reflects tough competition from Chinese solar panel makers and deteriorating market conditions in Europe, where the region’s ongoing debt crisis has cut into government subsidies for renewable energy. First Solar shares, which had lost 84% of their value over the past 12 months, rose $2.14, or 10.3%, to close at $22.96. Meanwhile, May crude-oil futures CLK2 +0.05% jumped $1.27 to $104.20 a barrel in New York following a successful Spanish government bond sale and a rise in German consumer confidence, both signs that Europe’s economic conditions are slowly turning around. Typically, a better economy signals higher energy demand www.marketwatch.com/story/first-solar-higher-oil-prices-boost-energy-stocks-2012-04-17?link=MW_home_latest_news
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Post by jeffolie on Apr 30, 2012 15:08:48 GMT -6
I have made many solar industry threads. I expect the US solar industry to collapse in 2013 to 2015. Why? Because as in Spain (see below piece) funding sources will decline under government changes. I use the little 'g' for US government because many types of governments here aid, buy, zone, subsidize the creation of solar. China's solar manufacturing will collapse if it does not find other place to export their panels or if their government decides not to buy their output. In the below piece Rios Renovables adapted to find other places to export their solar products and services. ============================ As Solar Sales Plummet in Spain, Ríos Renovables Heads Overseas When Adalberto Ríos founded Ríos Renovables two decades ago in the town of Fustiñana in northern Spain, he didn’t expect an airline to become a key part of his strategy. But as the company expands into new markets, such as Italy, Romania, and the U.S., to offset flagging sales at home, Adalberto and his chief executive officer, Ramón Tejadas, have spent countless hours on airplanes. And Ireland’s Ryanair (RYAAY), with cheap flights from the airport in nearby Zaragoza, has come in handy as the company seeks to cut costs. “We joke that we only go to those countries where Ryanair flies,” says Ríos. “We now travel pretty much every single week.” Founded in 1990 as an electricity systems installer, Ríos Renovables shifted to solar in 2004 when Spain introduced subsidies that promised a boom for renewable power. Ríos now develops, builds, maintains, and sells solar installations. The company, owned by Adalberto Ríos and his wife, Conchi Enrique, who is chief financial officer, enjoyed significant growth in Spain from 2004 to 2008. Then the solar bubble went bust as Spanish lawmakers cut subsidies and the world financial crisis hobbled growth. Spain saw new installations of 2,500 megawatts of solar capacity in 2008 and just 17 megawatts the following year, according to ASIF, a trade group of Spanish photovoltaic panel producers and related companies. ASIF forecasts 300 to 400 megawatts of installations this year. “The Spanish market is now really dry,” Tejadas says. “Sales in Spain are completely empty, and access to credit is limited, which affects not only us but also the funds that buy our parks.” The collapse at home spurred Ríos’s overseas push, which the company this year expects will help more than quadruple sales, to €200 million, from €46 million in 2010. Next year, Tejadas says, Ríos could see revenue of €350 million, with a profit margin of about 12 percent. “In this industry,” Tejadas says, “you have to be nimble. … At the end of the day, we spend more time abroad than at home.” Ríos has developed 40 megawatts of photovoltaic energy in Italy, or almost a third of the 125 megawatts it has built since its first solar installation seven years ago. Today, about two-thirds of the company’s 200 employees are in Italy. Ríos plans a similar push in Romania, where the company aims to develop 170 megawatts of solar by 2014. In the U.S., the company is in talks with investors for an $108 million, 16-megawatt solar park in Sacramento, Calif. “In each country you find new ways of working,” Ríos says. “The legal system, working hours, salaries, different ways of negotiating, the reliability. You need to adjust all the time.” Tricky Choices Ríos isn’t the only Spanish solar company that has looked abroad as the Iberian market has imploded. Madrid’s Solaria Energía & Medio Ambiente says it will make 80 percent of its sales this year in Italy, Germany, and Latin America, up from 15 percent two years ago. That’s smart, but it poses challenges for companies with little overseas experience, says Sean McLoughlin, vice president of Clean Technology Research at HSBC Bank (HBC) in London. “International expansion takes time, and dealing with local authorities in different countries involves finding the right people with local expertise,” McLoughlin says. “Given the rapidly falling tariffs in many countries, understanding which is the next market to get into can be tricky.” And it may be some time before the Spanish market bounces back, says Iván San Félix, an analyst at Madrid brokerage Renta 4. “The outlook for the solar industry in Spain isn’t pretty,” San Félix says. “It’s very expensive energy and relies heavily on government subsidies, which have been cut and may be reduced even further as part of austerity measures.” Ríos understands that geographic diversification alone isn’t enough, so the company plans to build 150 megawatts of wind projects in its home market over three or four years. In Italy, Ríos is in talks with partners to develop 100 megawatts of wind energy, Ríos says. In Romania, he is aiming to complete a project for 120 megawatts of wind energy in the next couple of years, and he says he’s looking into a 100-megawatt wind project in Mexico. The company is also planning a €2.5 million plant at its Spanish headquarters to produce light- emitting diode light fixtures for streets and public buildings as regional and local governments slash spending to meet deficit targets. Within two years, Ríos says, he expects that venture to provide nearly a third of total revenue. “When you’re in the middle of a huge crisis, you can’t just cry,” Ríos says. “We need to look for alternatives because it’s a whole different world.” www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-01/as-solar-sales-plummet-in-spain-r-os-renovables-heads-overseas.htmlAmerican solar companies are crashing with huge stock declines over the last 12 months. American labor for this industry remains uncompetitive in that both China and India ramped up manufacturing with labor costs and government investments. 2012 will result in only the lowest and most crony capitalism favored solar manufacturers remaining in this world market that has low tariffs. Tariffs by America's Obama recently finalized at such a tiny increase that Chinese solar stocks rallied when Obama signed into law what will bring my prediction true. Obama can not politically do more because in the campaigning Obama already must face failed Obama political efforts as crony capitalism with campaign contributors embrassed him too often. The remaining solar manufacturing can not long survive in America as the Chinese and Indian crony capitalism maintains prices the destroyed America's crony capitalism. ================================ LDK Solar Cuts 5,554 Workers Amid Clean-Energy Shakeout Apr 30, 2012 LDK Solar Co. (LDK), the world’s second- largest maker of wafers, cut 5,554 workers this year after plunging prices cut margins to record lows amid a shakeout that’s claimed thousands of renewable-energy jobs. LDK, which reported the lowest margins among its publicly traded peers, has cut its staff about 22 percent to 19,195 workers since the end of 2011, Chief Operations Officer Xingxue Tong said on a conference call today. The Chinese maker of polysilicon, wafers and solar panels has pared a third of its workforce since July, when it peaked at more than 28,000, in reaction to the “highly competitive” solar market. Solar manufacturers from China to the U.S., such as First Solar Inc. (FSLR), are under pressure after oversupply in all parts of the supply chain depressed prices. Since September, the spot price of polysilicon has fallen by a third, wafers are 35 percent lower and silicon-based solar panels are 25 percent cheaper, Bloomberg New Energy Finance data shows. “The solar industry experienced a tremendous supply and demand imbalance throughout the value chain during the fourth quarter,” LDK’s Chief Executive Officer Xiaofeng Peng said in a results statement. “In 2012, we expect that excess capacity and further policy uncertainties in Europe and the U.S. will result in continued intense competition within the solar industry.” Renewable-Energy Firings Other renewable-energy companies are eliminating employees. First Solar, the biggest maker of thin-film solar panels, announced April 17 plans to cut about 30 percent of its workforce, or 2,000 jobs. The Tempe, Arizona-based company is closing a factory in Germany and will idle production lines in Malaysia. Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), the largest turbine maker, is firing about about 10 percent of its staff, or 2,335 employees. The Aarhus, Denmark-based company may announce further cuts this year if U.S. lawmakers don’t extend incentives that are set to expire Dec. 31. LDK reported an operating margin of minus 126.5 percent and a gross margin of minus 65.5 percent due to a “significant” drop in prices, according to the statement released today. Margins were positive a year ago and at least minus 16.3 percent in the third quarter. The decline in prices led to a net loss of $588.7 million for the quarter, compared with a net income of $145.2 million a year ago. Inventory writedowns and provisions for purchases totaled $232.6 million, while “doubtful” receivables and prepayments required a $179.2 million provision, LDK said. The company’s margins were the lowest among the companies in the Bloomberg Large Solar index, which tracks the biggest listed players in the industry. In the fourth quarter, operating and gross margins for these companies averaged minus 36.4 and minus 7.6 percent, respectively. LDK’s American depositary receipts gained 7.4 percent to $3.18 at the close in New York. Each receipt is worth one ordinary share. www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-30/ldk-solar-cuts-5-554-workers-amid-clean-energy-shakeout.html
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 3, 2012 11:01:13 GMT -6
Obama failed again...promoted, loaned taxpayer's big money Obama imposed tiny tariffs that encouraged ChinaNow, Obama might have the balls to impose a moderate tariff at the end of OCT 1012 This "too little, too late" remains the doom of US Solar producer industry and sticks taxpayers with Billions in bad debts with Trillions in borrowed debt/deficts each year. Slightly closer to 2013 now... another collapse Solar producer " ... sticks taxpayers for $68 million ... " =========================================== Bankrupt Colo. solar firm sticks taxpayers for $68 million, doomed Despite glowing press clippings in which the CEO of Colorado-based Abound Solar claimed seven months ago that his company was the “anti-Solyndra,” the green-energy firm has filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. It is terminating all 125 workers at its Loveland, Colo. headquarters, and is blaming China for its failure. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Abound Solar a $400 million loan guarantee in December 2010, funds that the then-three-year-old startup said it would use to compete with solar panel industry leader First Solar. The company had tapped into about $70 million of those funds by August 2011 when the DOE unplugged it from the taxpayers’ cash stream, around the same time the more famous Solyndra went bankrupt. That company ate through $535 million in loans guaranteed by the federal government before it failed. While cheap imports from China have crippled much of the U.S. solar panel market, Abound’s problems appear to have been rooted in the quality of its own products, the competitiveness of its business model and its inability to retain top talent. In May, the Colorado Watchdog blog published an internal Abound Solar email revealing that in November 2010, the company dispatched an engineering technician to remove an entire rooftop of defective solar panels from the investment headquarters of wealthy Democratic benefactor Pat Stryker. Bohemian Companies, Stryker’s investment firm, was among the early investors that brought Abound approximately $300 million in startup capital. The email directed the technician to retrieve “two unused” panels for “FA” [Failure Analysis], suggesting that their construction — not a hailstorm or other natural event — was to blame for their malfunction. This rooftop-wide solar panel failure occurred just one month before Abound inked its deal with the Department of Energy. In January, the firm outlined its goals for 2012, including reaching an energy cost of $1 per watt “ASAP.” But Abound’s competitors had already reached that gold standard of solar production efficiency, in some cases more than two years earlier. A recent House Oversight Committee report on the Department of Energy’s green energy loan program highlighted concerns raised by credit rating agencies that vetted potential recipients of green-energy grants and loan guarantees. The Fitch Ratings company, the committee reported, “described Abound as lagging in technology relative to its competitors, failing to achieve stated efficiency targets, and expecting that Abound Solar will suffer from increasing commoditization and pricing pressures.” Trade journals have chronicled Abound’s difficulty to keep top management on board. And in February the free-market Independence Institute reported that Weld County, Colo. officials lost sufficient faith in Abound to revoke 2012 tax incentives they had previously extended to the solar energy company. In March, another Colorado blog published an internal Abound Solar email showing that the company had shut down production, without advance warning, in December and January. Employees were instructed to use their paid time off, and then to take days off without pay. The email told employees that the shutdown represented “best of class employer actions,” but warned against “let[ting] the purpose for this shutdown get the rumor mill started.” GreenTech Media reported in March that insiders had disclosed Abound’s burn rate – the rate at which the company spent its operating capital – as “$2 million per week.” In its statement of its 2012 goals, Abound told company insiders that it intended to “stretch payables,” putting off paying creditors as long as possible. Abound laid off 200 workers in February with an eye toward ”retooling” its factory for a new product, drawing criticism from industry journalists who complained that “ successful manufacturing operation shouldn’t stop running the lines all together in order to switch to new equipment.”
dailycaller.com/2012/07/03/bankrupt-colo-solar-firm-sticks-taxpayers-for-68-million-doomed-by-poor-quality/
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 20, 2012 13:09:45 GMT -6
Obama 'greenie BK'...fails the smell test This fails the smell test ... Obama campaign donator again results in taxpayer losses The main stream media ignores these taxpayer funded 'green' jobs failures ... 200 laid off at failed solar panel manufacturer ... late October tariffs might become final ... much to late to save this and others ... Obama has been a business plan for failure burdening the taxpayers ============================== Another Obama Bundler Boondoggle Goes Broke Another green company backed by an Obama bundler just bit the dust. After announcing earlier this year that the company would lay off 200 of its 300 employees, solar manufacturer Amonix Inc. closed its operation in North Las Vegas leaving taxpayers in the red by $20 million. “Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc. opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas,” reports the Las Vegas Sun, a liberal paper, last January, “the company’s contractor has laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. Flextronics Industrial, the Singapore solar panel manufacturer that partnered with Amonix to staff the new $18 million, 214,000-square-foot plant, laid off about 200 of its 300-plus employees Tuesday.” Now only 14 months after opening the facility, and seven months after massive layoffs, it has closed due to manufacturing over-capacity in the solar industry, along with quality control issues "I don't think they had a lot of training," said Rene Kenerly, a former material and supply manager at Amonix, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. "There were a lot of quality issues. A lot of stuff was coming back because it had some functionality issues." Sounds like a picture perfect Obama program: Very expensive with "functionality issues." The man behind the company, Steve Westly, has received over $500 million in taxpayer-funded grants, loans and cash for a variety of companies- mostly in the in the green space after raising $86,000 for Obama as a bundler in 2008, according to the campaign cash website opensecrets.org. So far this election cycle, Westly has donated $101,000 to various Democrat candidates and groups according to data compiled by opensecrets, including $60,000 to DNC Service Corp, also known by the less creepy name of the Democrat National Committee. Earlier this week, I detailed plans by another Obama bundler, Steven Gluckstern, to help municipalities seize mortgage loans under eminent domain laws- that is, abuse eminent domain laws- in order to generate fees for his company, Mortgage Resolution Partners. Westly’s list of interests backed by the Obama administration is much, much longer than the Gluckstern scheme however. From the Center for Public Integrity: “We believe that with the Obama administration, and other governments … committing hundreds of billions of dollars to clean tech, there has never been a better time to launch clean tech companies,” says his company website. “The Westly Group is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this surge of interest and growth.” Uniquely positioned, indeed. One of President Barack Obama’s most prolific fundraisers, Westly was among guests at January’s state dinner for the president of China. A month later, he dined with Obama again at an exclusive San Francisco Bay area gathering for prominent high tech CEOs, including the leaders of Facebook, Google and Apple. In addition to the $20 million in loans and tax credits for the failed Amonix plant, Westly also is involved in other companies that have benefited from Obama-directed taxpayer help: Tesla Motors, CalStar Products, Solexel, Recycle Bank, EdenIQ and Amyris Biotechnologies. Now I understand why the Democrats are so worried about Mitt’s tax returns: Mitt’s showing income not losses. Obama's taxpayer rate of returns shows losses not income. Occupy that. Here’s my proposal: If it’s constitutional to tax people who don’t have healthcare, isn’t it constitutional to levy a tax on investors who benefit from federal green energy boondoggles? If you are going to go after millionaires and billionaires, here’s a set of folks who are just crying for it. Because if you want to know what happened to the all the stimulus jobs that were supposed to be created, now you know: They were sacrificed to stimulate the bundlers. That’s all. finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/07/20/another_obama_bundler_boondoggle_goes_broke/page/full/
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Post by jeffolie on Sept 28, 2012 15:13:54 GMT -6
Sharp to End Solar Panel Business in U.S., Europe" ... Sharp has been a solar cell producer for 50 years and was once the world's largest producer of cells and panels -- prior to China's domination of the market. ... " Sharp collapses American production ... prediction coming true approaching 2013Many American Solar Panel Businesses in the US, EU have ended as predicted in 2011US solar collapse 2013 to 2015. « Thread Started 2011 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have made many solar industry threads. I expect the US solar industry to collapse in 2013 to 2015. Read more: www.unlawflcombatnt.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=oil&action=display&thread=10013#ixzz27njVhJhROver 2 years ago, I research solar panels for the contract we executed installing at our home. Sharp then ranked always in the top group for quality and in the middle for price ... I almost selected Sharp solar panels and then went with a different manufacturer. ================================================== BLOOMBERG - Sharp Corp. plans to end production and sales of solar cells and modules in the U.S. and Europe by March as part of a restructuring, Kyodo News said. Sharp also plans to sell three manufacturing plants for solar products in Japan’s Nara, Osaka and Toyama prefectures and consolidate production at its Sakai plant, Kyodo reported today, without saying where it got the information. www.solarplaza.com/news/sharp-to-end-solar-panel-business-in-us-europe?utm_source=Solarplaza+SUN&utm_campaign=0a42fad7b9-SUN&utm_medium=email===================================== Sharp to Sell Off Solar Developer Recurrent Energy for $321M Were there any synergies in the original Sharp-Recurrent acquisition? Why is Sharp selling off this project developer? CEO Arno Harris weighs in. Eric Wesoff: September 25, 2012 Sharp Corporation is looking to sell solar project developer Recurrent Energy for approximately $321 million as part of a reorganization, according to reports from the Kyodo News agency. Recurrent has a solar project portfolio of 500 megawatts and a pipeline of 2.5 gigawatts, according to the firm. When Recurrent Energy was purchased by Osaka-based Sharp in 2010, it was happy news for the solar industry and, to some extent, the venture capitalists investing in the solar space. Sharp paid $305 million for a 100 percent stake in Recurrent Energy, a solar project developer. Investors in Recurrent included Mohr Davidow Ventures and Hudson Clean Energy Partners. It was MDV's first greentech exit. The acquisition was part of a trend by upstream solar manufacturers to move downstream and capture some of the value in installation and project development. This charge was led by First Solar, SunPower, and later MEMC's acquisition of SunEdison and Hanwha's downstream plays. Sharp has been a solar cell producer for 50 years and was once the world's largest producer of cells and panels -- prior to China's domination of the market. The original acquisition seemed to effectively bring together two companies that were both in need of strong allies. Sharp was one of the largest and historically strongest solar module makers in the world and Recurrent was one of the largest independent solar power project developers. With Recurrent, Sharp had a group that could bid on solar power projects, and then build them with Sharp modules. Recurrent had a 2-gigawatt product pipeline: that could sure soak up a lot of modules. Sharp made this acquisition but never expressed the intent to "capitalize on the synergies between Recurrent and Sharp Solar," in the words of GTM Research's Senior Solar Analyst Shyam Mehta. Instead, Recurrent remained independent from Sharp's solar business with the ability to build its pipeline with external modules - and was highly successful in doing so. Update: Sept. 25, 7 p.m. PT Recurrent CEO Arno Harris gave us this comment: “With almost 700 megawatts of contracted projects and a 2.5-gigawatt project pipeline, Recurrent Energy’s business is strong, profitable and growing,” said Arno Harris, CEO, Recurrent Energy. “We continue to meet and exceed our business goals as we build out our contracted project portfolio. To date we have secured almost $2 billion in project finance commitments from third parties and have ample capital to execute on all existing projects.” “Recurrent Energy has excellent and long-standing relationships with the major financial institutions engaged in the energy sector, and we have every confidence, based on our industry-leading position in North America and our strong profitability, that Recurrent Energy will retain the interest of financial sponsors, whether Sharp, a new sponsor, or a combination of the two.” “The manufacturing side of the solar industry is experiencing some growing pains, but cost reductions continue to drive a robust market for leading developers like Recurrent Energy,” continued Mr. Harris. “Realignment is a natural part of industry maturity , which will ultimately unlock tremendous value, stimulate a new era of growth and make solar a pillar of mainstream energy markets.” The GTM Research solar analyst team adds, "Recurrent Energy has 223 megawatts of utility projects contracted and operating in the U.S., placing it among the top ten utility scale developers in the country. However, Sharp's stake in Recurrent has not created a captive pipeline for its modules -- the majority of Recurrent's current pipeline utilizes modules from Suntech and Yingli. While this was the intent expressed by Sharp from the first announcement of the acquisition, an opportunity to use Recurrent as a throughput enabler may have been missed." www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Sharp-to-Sell-Off-Solar-Developer-Recurrent-Energy/
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Post by jeffolie on Oct 6, 2012 16:53:14 GMT -6
Solar Panels Glut China Threat like USSR crash China reminds me of the USSR: unprofitable govt industries employ masses become the future jobless when the central govt abandons them as the politics change and implode. Overcapacity leads to DEFLATIONARY lower prices with the EU cutbacks, China is likely to dump its surplus overseas: America and Japan targets" ... The modest cutbacks in production barely put a dent in China’s overcapacity problem. GTM Research, a renewable energy consulting firm in Boston, estimates that Chinese companies have the ability to manufacture 50 gigawatts of solar panels this year, while the Chinese domestic market is on track to absorb only 4 to 5 gigawatts. Exports will take another 18 or 19 gigawatts. ... " China jammed bad loans into the local banks as SunTech about to be US DELISTED STOCK.Sharp just abandoned solar panel manufacturing in the US and the EU ... a 50 year effort down the drain because of cheap Chinese govt subsidized panels. ==================== Glut of Solar Panels Poses a New Threat to ChinaOctober 4, 2012 BEIJING — China in recent years established global dominance in renewable energy, its solar panel and wind turbine factories forcing many foreign rivals out of business and its policy makers hailed by environmentalists around the world as visionaries. But now China’s strategy is in disarray. Though worldwide demand for solar panels and wind turbines has grown rapidly over the last five years, China’s manufacturing capacity has soared even faster, creating enormous oversupply and a ferocious price war. The result is a looming financial disaster, not only for manufacturers but for state-owned banks that financed factories with approximately $18 billion in low-rate loans and for municipal and provincial governments that provided loan guarantees and sold manufacturers valuable land at deeply discounted prices. China’s biggest solar panel makers are suffering losses of up to $1 for every $3 of sales this year, as panel prices have fallen by three-fourths since 2008. Even though the cost of solar power has fallen, it still remains triple the price of coal-generated power in China, requiring substantial subsidies through a tax imposed on industrial users of electricity to cover the higher cost of renewable energy. The outcome has left even the architects of China’s renewable energy strategy feeling frustrated and eager to see many businesses shut down, so the most efficient companies may be salvageable financially. In the solar panel sector, “If one-third of them survive, that’s good, and two-thirds of them die, but we don’t know how that happens,” said Li Junfeng, a longtime director general for energy and climate policy at the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planning agency. Mr. Li said in an interview that he wanted banks to cut off loans to all but the strongest solar panel companies and let the rest go bankrupt. But banks — which were encouraged by Beijing to make the loans — are not eager to acknowledge that the loans are bad and take large write-offs, preferring to lend more money to allow the repayment of previous loans. Many local and provincial governments also are determined to keep their hometown favorites afloat to avoid job losses and to avoid making payments on loan guarantees, he said. Mr. Li’s worries appear to be broadly shared in Beijing. “For the leading companies in the sector, if they’re not careful, the whole sector will disappear,” said Chen Huiqing, the deputy director for solar products at the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products. The Chinese government also wants to see the country’s more than 20 wind turbine manufacturers, many of which are losing money, consolidate to five or six. “Wind does not need so many manufacturers,” said Mr. Li, who in addition to drafting renewable energy policies is the president of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association. Chinese solar company executives blame their difficulties partly on the United States’s decisions last spring to impose antidumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on solar panel imports, and on the European Union’s recent decision to start its own antidumping investigation of imports from China. “It is not a Chinese industry problem, it is a global solar industry problem,” said Rory Macpherson, a spokesman for Suntech Power, one of the largest Chinese solar panel manufacturers. “It is primarily the result of an imbalance between supply and demand, and the U.S. and E.U. trade investigations.” Mr. Li said the solar industry’s problems were the result of overcapacity in China, and not the fault of trade restrictions. Yet he insisted that if the Chinese government could turn back the clock and revisit past renewable energy decisions, it would not do anything differently. The problem lies in the eagerness of Chinese businesses to rush into any new industry that looks attractive and swamp it with investments, he said. Chinese companies and their bankers are then far more reluctant than Western companies to admit defeat for investments that prove unprofitable. Mr. Li added that banking regulators had not yet decided what to do about banks’ exposure to the solar sector. The central government tried without success to learn from local and provincial government agencies how much of the solar industry’s bank debt they have guaranteed, Mr. Li said. Chinese solar power companies are making some cutbacks. Suntech, based in Wuxi, is temporarily closing a quarter of its solar cell capacity. It will transfer a majority of the 1,500 affected workers to other operations and provide severance payments to the rest. Jiangsu province, where Suntech has its headquarters and most of its factories, issued an unusual appeal to state-owned banks several weeks ago to continue lending money to the company, a step that Mr. Li criticized as inappropriate. Mr. Macpherson of Suntech wrote in an e-mail that the Jiangsu government had not guaranteed any of the company’s debt, which totaled $2.26 billion at the end of the first quarter, including some convertible bonds in addition to bank loans. Trina Solar, one of its biggest rivals, also has said it will “streamline its operations” and shrink its work force, but did not provide details. Trina shares have dropped 85 percent in the last three years and Suntech shares have fallen more than 98 percent in the last five years. Both trade on the New York Stock Exchange. The modest cutbacks in production barely put a dent in China’s overcapacity problem. GTM Research, a renewable energy consulting firm in Boston, estimates that Chinese companies have the ability to manufacture 50 gigawatts of solar panels this year, while the Chinese domestic market is on track to absorb only 4 to 5 gigawatts. Exports will take another 18 or 19 gigawatts. The enormously expensive equipment in solar panel factories needs to be run around the clock, seven days a week, to cover costs. “You want to be up at 80 percent, so they’re half of what they need,” said Shayle Kann, the head of GTM Research, which is a unit of Greentech Media. Chinese companies have struggled even though a dozen solar companies in the United States and another dozen in Europe have gone bankrupt or closed factories since the start of last year. The bankruptcies and closures have done little to ease the global glut and price war because China by itself represents more than two-thirds of the world’s capacity. To reduce capacity, foreign rivals have clamored for China to subsidize the purchase of more solar panels at home, instead of having Chinese companies rely so heavily on exports. But the government here is worried about the cost of doing so, because the price of solar power remains far higher than for coal-generated power. The average cost of electricity from solar panels in China works out to 19 cents per kilowatt-hour, said Mr. Li. That is three times the cost of coal-fired power. But it is a marked improvement from 63 cents per kilowatt-hour for solar power four years ago. China’s official goal is to install 10 gigawatts of solar panels a year by 2015, using 20-year contracts to guarantee payment for electricity purchased from them. If costs stay where they are now, the subsidies would be $50 billion over 20 years for every 10 gigawatts of solar power installed, based on figures supplied by Mr. Li. Even if solar power costs fall by a third, as the government hopes, he said, “it’s big money.” www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/business/global/glut-of-solar-panels-is-a-new-test-for-china.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&partner=socialflow
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Post by jeffolie on Nov 4, 2012 12:50:20 GMT -6
The surviving US solar manufacturers are diving as the 2013-2015 predicted collapse period approachs. ============================================ These Solar Companies Take a Dive After Earnings November 02, 2012 Shares of First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) are down over 9 percent in afternoon trading on Friday. The American solar manufacturer is suffering from general negativity in the solar industry, compounded by a third-quarter revenue miss. Revenue for the quarter fell 17 percent year-over-year to $839.1 million, missing expectations by $127 million. Earnings per share dropped to $1 when fully diluted, including a charge of $0.27 per share for restructuring charges. EPS for the quarter in 2011 was $2.25. Catalysts are critical to discovering winning stocks. Check out our newest CHEAT SHEET stock picks now. Following a general downward trend in demand for solar panels, particularly heading into the fourth quarter, the company revised its full-year 2012 net sales guidance from between $3.6 billion and $3.9 billion to between $3.5 and $3.8 billion. First Solar also cited “weather-related disruptions in our supply chain and at certain project sites, which may push the expected closing of the project sales from Q4 2012 into Q1 2013.” The company issued GAAP guidance on 2012 earnings per share in the range of -$1.30 to -$1.60. “Despite continued uncertainties and over-supply conditions in the market, First Solar delivered another strong quarterly performance,” said CEO Jim Hughes. “Our quarterly performance coupled with our recent project wins in sustainable markets demonstrates we are making meaningful progress in achieving our strategic plan for long-term growth and value creation.” Wall Street clearly doesn’t seem to share Mr. Hughes’ confidence. However, First Solar did announce a number of large projects in October, and shares had climbed over 8 percent in the month. Despite what is widely agreed to be an unhealthy market, the company should be seeing some relief from anti-dumping and countervailing tariffs levied against Chinese solar panel imports. Also on the bright side, capacity utilization rose from 63 percent to 83 percent. In the company’s earnings call, CFO Mark Widmar noted that cost per watt for the quarter fell $0.05 to $0.67. American industry partner SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) also posted its third-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday, and is worse for the wear. Shares are down over 7 percent in the afternoon despite EPS of $0.03 beating estimates by $0.14, and revenue growing 7.9 percent to $649 million, beating by estimates by $57 million. In the earnings release, CEO Tom Werner points out that SunPower saw growth despite “difficult industry conditions.” SunPower also announced a slew of new projects in the quarter, but lost share value in October. The company is up just over 8 percent for the last three months ending October 31. The company issued fourth-quarter guidance of -$0.75 to -$1.00 per diluted share. Shares of Chinese solar industry participants have not wobbled outside of expectations on the news. Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE:STP) rose as high as 2.7 percent in the afternoon, while Trina Solar (NYSE:TSL) dropped as much as 2.2 percent. On Thursday, China’s commerce ministry announced that it would launch its own investigation into solar imports and exports. The move is seen by many as retaliation for America’s tariffs and comes as the European Union considers its own solar panel duties. Chinese solar manufacturers have taken a lot of blame for the over-supply of panels in the market. Bankrupt companies like Solyndra have gone as far as filing lawsuits claiming conspiracy. For its part, China has raised its capacity utilization from a low around 20 percent to about 50 percent. The country’s solar industry is in for deep workforce cuts before it is likely to recover. wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/these-solar-companies-take-a-dive-after-earnings.html/
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Post by jacquelope on Nov 7, 2012 8:12:34 GMT -6
“Included in the list of failed solar companies is Solon of Germany whose corporate slogan was ‘Don’t Leave the Planet to the Stupid.’ Fortunately for taxpayers, it appears Solon will be leaving the planet.” Ignorance. They got nailed by Chinese subsidies. More ignorance. China cheats to compete. Miles and piles of ignorance. How come this adage isn't applied to Chinese government intervention in the market? Ignorance. Has this guy seen the petroleum industry and how well it's fared without government help? They get tons of help. Hello, military escorts? I call that even more ignorance. China's entire industrial system is subsidized and protected from the ground up, starting with dirt cheap labor. This idiot is putting the cart before the horse! HOT AIR ignorance! Chinese industries are far more polluting than American or German industries. Blocking Chinese imports means this solar market will be served by EPA-compliant companies. Who is this dunderfucked knucklehead trying to fool? Meanwhile this ignorant jackass thinks China is all sweet and innocent. W.T.F. Oh, I see. It's not ignorance. It's oil industry bought and paid for shilling. Solar is evolving to an era of energy decentralization which will make it harder for the big corporations to make money. When solar panels get married to 3d/nanoprinting the entire game is going to be changed. When industrial production gets married to 3d/nanoprinting, China's entire manufacturing sector is dead.
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Post by jeffolie on Nov 7, 2012 13:41:39 GMT -6
“Included in the list of failed solar companies is Solon of Germany whose corporate slogan was ‘Don’t Leave the Planet to the Stupid.’ Fortunately for taxpayers, it appears Solon will be leaving the planet.” Ignorance. They got nailed by Chinese subsidies. More ignorance. China cheats to compete. Miles and piles of ignorance. How come this adage isn't applied to Chinese government intervention in the market? Ignorance. Has this guy seen the petroleum industry and how well it's fared without government help? They get tons of help. Hello, military escorts? I call that even more ignorance. China's entire industrial system is subsidized and protected from the ground up, starting with dirt cheap labor. This idiot is putting the cart before the horse! HOT AIR ignorance! Chinese industries are far more polluting than American or German industries. Blocking Chinese imports means this solar market will be served by EPA-compliant companies. Who is this dunderfucked knucklehead trying to fool? Meanwhile this ignorant jackass thinks China is all sweet and innocent. W.T.F. Oh, I see. It's not ignorance. It's oil industry bought and paid for shilling. Solar is evolving to an era of energy decentralization which will make it harder for the big corporations to make money. When solar panels get married to 3d/nanoprinting the entire game is going to be changed. When industrial production gets married to 3d/nanoprinting, China's entire manufacturing sector is dead. jacquelope,
... you are correct about China's support of their solar panel manufacturing from the ground up ... they are today's version of Communists, so that should be expected. China benefitted from Obama's hands off trade policies. With Obama now re-elected China most likely will see only small changes from Obama with the Dems retaining the Senate. Obama did impose some tariffs on Chinese manufactured solar panels recently. Hardly any solar panels are manufactured now in America despite Obama's 'green' policies and Department of Energy grants and/or loans. Manufacturing solar panels in America collapsed even faster than my 2011 predictions for 2013 to 2015.
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Post by jacquelope on Nov 7, 2012 22:15:41 GMT -6
Ignorance. They got nailed by Chinese subsidies. More ignorance. China cheats to compete. Miles and piles of ignorance. How come this adage isn't applied to Chinese government intervention in the market? Ignorance. Has this guy seen the petroleum industry and how well it's fared without government help? They get tons of help. Hello, military escorts? I call that even more ignorance. China's entire industrial system is subsidized and protected from the ground up, starting with dirt cheap labor. This idiot is putting the cart before the horse! HOT AIR ignorance! Chinese industries are far more polluting than American or German industries. Blocking Chinese imports means this solar market will be served by EPA-compliant companies. Who is this dunderfucked knucklehead trying to fool? Meanwhile this ignorant jackass thinks China is all sweet and innocent. W.T.F. Oh, I see. It's not ignorance. It's oil industry bought and paid for shilling. Solar is evolving to an era of energy decentralization which will make it harder for the big corporations to make money. When solar panels get married to 3d/nanoprinting the entire game is going to be changed. When industrial production gets married to 3d/nanoprinting, China's entire manufacturing sector is dead. jacquelope,
... you are correct about China's support of their solar panel manufacturing from the ground up ... they are today's version of Communists, so that should be expected. China benefitted from Obama's hands off trade policies. With Obama now re-elected China most likely will see only small changes from Obama with the Dems retaining the Senate. Obama did impose some tariffs on Chinese manufactured solar panels recently. Hardly any solar panels are manufactured now in America despite Obama's 'green' policies and Department of Energy grants and/or loans. Manufacturing solar panels in America collapsed even faster than my 2011 predictions for 2013 to 2015. He's going to need some super high tariffs to beat China. Nosebleed high. What's the bare minimum to be useful now, 200%? 500? 1100?
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