Solar Photovoltaic

Doug Young  Sunset looms for Suntech. Photo by Tom Konrad The month of February could mark the final sunset for solar panel maker Suntech (OTC: STPFQ), with 2 major events on the calendar that look like the swansong for this former solar energy pioneer. If the ending does indeed come, it would be almost a year after Suntech first was forced into bankruptcy in a Chinese court in its home city of Wuxi, kicking off a contentious process that saw many of its top executives and board members...

Charles W. Thurston Members of the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE) railed against the impending "trade war," arguing that the steep price drop in imported Chinese photovoltaic modules was good for "98 percent" of U.S. solar industry jobs. "We are growing U.S. solar jobs and this trade case will undermine all the advances we have made in the U.S. solar industry," said one CASE member. Holding a press conference Thursday morning in Washington after testimony was heard Wednesday by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) about the alleged dumping of Chinese modules in the United States,...

Doug Young A couple of news bits from the solar sector are showing at once how companies continue to struggle with fallout from the ongoing downturn even as some larger players continue to receive lifelines from Beijing. In the former category, floundering giant LDK (NYSE: LDK) has just announced an arbitration panel's ruling that it must pay hundreds of millions of yuan for equipment that it ordered at the height of the solar boom but which it no longer wants or needs. Meantime in the latter category, mid-sized player Hanwha SolarOne (Nasdaq: HSOL) has just received a major...

Debra Fiakas The chip makers dominate discussion of the solar energy sector.  Nonetheless, a passing comment in a recent blog post introduced me to an interesting company that seems to have been over looked in the solar story  -  Apollo Solar Energy, Inc. (ASOE:  OTC/BB). Apollo produces tellurium, a little known chemical element that looks deceptively like tin.  It is typically a by-product of copper and lead mining operations, but can be found hiding beside gold as well.  While these are very common metals, tellurium is quite rare on earth.  Outer space is another story. Although...

by Paula Mints Economic theory holds that when a good is provided it must be paid for and that the value for that good will be set by a dance between the sellers and buyers in a market. It is assumed that when the price is too high buyers will back away and the price will adjust. When the price is too low sellers will fail to make sufficient margin to continue producing the good and the price will adjust. And finally, when the price is just right, equilibrium will be achieved and buyers and sellers will be...

Doug Young  Bottom line: Yingli’s use of crowd-funding to finance a small project and the bargain sale price of a small polysilicon maker reflect continuing struggles at second-tier solar companies and the need for more consolidation. Two solar energy stories are showing how overcapacity continues to haunt the sector 2 years after it began to emerge from a major downturn. The first involves a desperate-looking fund-raising plan from the struggling Yingli (NYSE: YGE), which is trying to use crowd funding to pay for a new solar plant. The other news involves another slightly bizarre investment in the space, with...

Jennifer Runyon Responding to projections that the solar panel module overcapacity will continue for at least another year, solar equipment maker GT Advanced Technologies today announced a restructuring plan. The company will lay off approximately 25 percent of its workforce and consolidate its existing business units into a single Crystal Growth Systems (CGS) group. The company said that when fully implemented, the restructuring would save approximately $13 million in annualized expenses. GT expects to record restructuring charges associated with these actions in the amount of approximately $4.2 million in the December quarter. More details and commentary will be...

This morning, SunPower (SPWR) announced that it had sold a majority interest in two solar projects totaling 123MW.  Owners of stock in SunPower's jointly sponsored Yieldco 8point3 Energy Partners (CAFD) might be wondering, "Hey, shouldn't SunPower be selling these projects to CAFD?" The Yieldco model has Yieldcos using inexpensive capital from income investors to fund the purchase of projects from their developer sponsors, which have more expensive capital because developing solar projects is riskier than owning already-developed ones.  In fact, one of the two projects in question can be found in 8point3's "Right of First Offer" or ROFO...

By Harris Roen Summer is here, and the sun has been shining on alternative energy. Two investment themes in the changing alternative energy landscape have emerged as potential profit centers for investors. To take advantage of these trends, the Roen Financial Report has added in four new companies to the list of about 250 alternative energy companies that we track for our readers. Investment Theme #1: The growing domestic Japanese solar market In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan has committed to growing renewables as a domestic energy source. According to Mercom Capital Group,...

Doug Young After more than a year of antagonism, I’m happy to see that the voice of reason finally seems to be coming to the ongoing clash between China and the west in their prolonged dispute over Beijing’s state support for solar panel sector. Germany seems to be the driving force behind this welcome change in tone, following German Chancellor Angela Merckel’s remarks last week that she opposed anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese solar cells being proposed by the EU’s trade office. Merkel correctly realized that a trade war over solar panels wouldn’t benefit anyone, and could potentially deal...

I recently attended the Optoelectronic Industry Development Association's (OIDA) "Green" Photonics Forum.  Unlike dirty industries trying to appear green, the Optoelectronics industry does not really have to try to be green.  Two prominent examples familiar to clean energy investors are Concentrating Photovoltaic Solar (CPV) (i.e. using optics to focus light on high efficiency solar cells) and Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). The presentations on Tuesday focused on the above technologies, and I was struck by a common problem faced by both: heat dissipation.  According to Sarah Kurtz, a National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientist leading the team working on high-efficiency, multi-junction...

Charles MorandLike Tom, I attended part of the Solar 2009 conference last week. One of the most interesting presentations I heard was by Andy Black, CEO of OnGrid Solar, on the potential impact on residential solar installations of removing the $2,000 ITC limit (link to the actual paper). Prior to changes in October 2008, ITC tax credits for rooftop solar PV installations were capped at $2,000. In the author's own words: This paper presents revised and expanded financial analyses of residential cases . It will look at Internal Rate of Return (IRR) only (for simplicity of...