Solar Photovoltaic

By Joseph McCabe, PE Timeline for Abound Solar The sad news on July 2nd 2012 was that 125 employees were being laid off at the Abound Solar factories in Colorado. Abound listed assets at $100 million and liabilities of $500 million in the bankruptcy filing. The final auction of the equipment assets was performed this past week. I feel fortunate to have visited Dr. W.S. Sampath's Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing laboratory at Colorado State University in February 2005.  At that time the laboratory was depositing CdTe PV materials onto 16” X 16” glass panels. That...

By Tim Conneally The pool of public solar yieldcos keeps growing. Just before the Christmas holiday, Sol-Wind Renewable Power LP filed for a $100 million initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This will be the eighth Yieldco to debut since 2013, and the stock will trade on the NYSE under the symbol SLWD. But there's something different about this one. Sol-Wind is a yieldco that utilizes a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) structure, so it will be taxed differently from the other Yieldcos. Generally speaking, a Yieldco is similar to MLPs by nature, but the taxation...

by Doug Young China sent an important message to the struggling solar panel sector last week when one of the country’s major manufacturers was forced to turn to global capital markets to raise new funds, hinting that it couldn’t receive the money from state-backed domestic sources. The move sparked a sell-off for New York-listed shares of Yingli Green Energy (NYSE: YGE), as its request for funds met with a frosty response on Wall Street. The fact that Yingli had to seek funding from commercial-oriented western investors indicates Beijing is taking a hands-off approach to financing...

Paul Denholm, a Senior Analyst at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), sees an upcoming struggle between renewable sources of electricity such as photovoltaics (PV) and wind with low-carbon baseload alternatives for space on the low carbon grid of the future.  These baseload alternatives are nuclear and Internal Gasification Combined Cycle coal plants with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (IGCC w/ CCS, refereed to by advocates as "Clean Coal). This may come as a shock to advocates of the idea that Global Warming is such a big problem that we will need all forms of low carbon electricity, because the...

By Brandon Qureshi Recently, Ascent Solar Technologies (ASTI:  Nasdaq) , a publicly traded solar power company, received an additional $5.0 million from institutional investor Ironridge Technology, thereby completing a $10 million Series B Preferred Stock investment.  AST, based in Thornton, Colorado, has emerged as a leader in the development of flexible, thin, high-performance solar panels. In order to examine AST within an industrial context, a profile of the solar power industry is necessary: According to sources such as Time and E&E Publishing, the industry has experienced record levels of popularity in the United States in the last...

Marc Gunther Should we worry about Chinese government subsidies to its solar industry? Or send the Chinese a thank-you note? A group of seven US-based manufacturers of solar panels is alarmed. These manufacturers, led by Solar World (SRWRF.PK), a German firm with a plant in Oregon, filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission, which reached a preliminary conclusion in December that US companies were, in fact, being harmed by subsidized imports. If the Commerce Department goes on to find that Chinese firms have been dumping solar panels on the US market at prices below their costs,...

If you Hate Money, Don't Invest in Solar! It took the solar industry forty years to reach a cumulative global capacity of 100 gigawatts … By 2020, more than 100 gigawatts will be installed in a single year! According to a new report from the good folks over at Greentech Media, the solar industry will install a mind-blowing 135 gigawatts of solar PV projects all across the globe in less than five years. This will push the cumulative market to nearly 700 gigawatts - or about the size of all the electrical generating capacity in Europe today....

Doug Young More clouds for solar sector There's a flurry of news coming from the embattled solar sector, led by a sharp cutback by Suntech (NYSE: STP) at its main US plant that looks suspiciously like it is being ordered by Beijing part of a government rescue plan for the struggling company. Meantime, JA Solar (Nasdaq: JASO) and LDK (NYSE: LDK) are struggling just to stay listed as their market values quickly evaporate. And in a rare but fleeting piece of good news, Yingli (NYSE: YGE), Trina (NYSE: TSL) and others are getting a temporary boost...

Jennifer Runyon It really is all China's fault, say most solar experts, but the Chinese government's motivations aren't necessarily malicious.   Fingering China photo via Bigstock Today is the last day before the International Trade Commission makes its final ruling on the tariffs that will likely be added to solar panels that include cells that were manufactured in China. We'll report on the specifics as soon as we have them but it's a pretty safe bet that there'll be tariffs in the amount of...

by Doug Young Bottom line: Yingli is in increasing danger of defaulting on its heavy debt load, which could result in a rapid and disorderly bankruptcy if its hometown government fails to provide support. After sending out a steady series of distress signals over the last few weeks, solar panel maker Yingli Green Energy (NYSE: YGE) has sent out its strongest trouble sign yet as it struggles under a huge debt load. The most recent signal comes in a new filing with the US securities regulator, in which Yingli says its big debt could threaten its...

Doug Young Solar panel makers are finally seeing signs that the clouds could be lifting from their embattled sector, sparking a stock rally for their volatile shares. Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) led off the upbeat news, releasing preliminary results that included better-than-expected first-quarter sales and margins. But perhaps more importantly, other reports said the industry is seeing some of its first sustained price increases after more than 2 years of declines. Those 2 pieces of good news ignited a rally for solar shares, led by Canadian Solar whose stock rose more than 12 percent to a...

GE Global Research, the centralized research organization of the General Electric Company (GE), announced that it was selected by the Department of Energy (DOE) to lead $11 million of research projects in the development of hydrogen as a fuel source. The programs are focused on near and long term solutions for the production of hydrogen with sustainable, clean technologies. GE Global Research will contribute approximately $2.5 million to the projects with the balance coming from DOE and other industry partners. This project plans to study the creation of hydrogen from solar water splitting, naturual gas/bio production, and...

Doug Young Bottom line: Solar products maker Tianwei is likely to get a government bailout before it defaults on an upcoming bond payment, while a massive 2 GW solar farm being built by a new private equity fund is likely to get completed. Two solar news items are drawing attention to both the opportunities and challenges facing this increasingly schizophrenic sector in China. A new mega-project is spotlighting the huge opportunities for new construction in the space, with word that a recently launched private equity fund plans to build a massive solar farm with a whopping 2...

Tildy Bayar A microinverter from iEnergy Photovoltaic (PV) microinverters, traditionally used in smaller rooftop solar installations, are being used in a 2.3-MW commercial rooftop installation in Ontario, Canada, supplier Enphase Energy (ENPH) has announced. The installation is the largest commercial rooftop project under the province’s feed-in tariff (FiT). Analysis firm IHS Research has called the announcement a milestone in the microinverter segment’s progress towards establishing itself outside its biggest market, the U.S., and outside the residential solar segment.  According to IHS’s analysis, PV microinverter shipments are forecast to exceed...

Analyzing Solar Stocks With False Assumptions Dana Blankenhorn When most people think of solar energy, they see flat panels on a roof. They don't think about thin film. They don't see it. This is one of the many advantages of CIGS  and other thin film solar technologies. So what if its efficiency is half that of a panel? It conforms to the shape of the place where it lays. Thin film can also be productized in ways no panel can. It can be turned into something retailers can sell or bloggers will...

by Debra Fiakas CFA The last post “SolarCity's Investor Disconnect” visited the oft repeated flogging of a company missing consensus estimates.  SolarCity (SCTY:  Nasdaq) reported strong sales growth in the December 2012 quarter, but the net loss was far deeper than expected  -  at least as suggested by published consensus estimates.  Investors immediately held the company accountable for the miss.  A closer look at the consensus reveals it is there is a great deal of disagreement on SolarCity’s fortunes. We can debate whether a company should be measured against a shakey consensus...