Can Panasonic Produce High Efficiency Solar Modules at Tesla’s Gigafactory 2 in 2017?
EDITOR'S NOTE: Yesterday, Tesla (NASD:TSLA) announced that it has no intention of using Silevo's technology at "Gigafactory 2," the former Silevo facility in Western New York, now owned by Tesla through its acquisition of SolarCity. This makes some background on Panasonic (Whose technology Tesla plans to rely on instead) in this month's Solar Flare particularly relevant. Panasonic recently announced that the New York Facility would be operated under the name Panasonic Eco Solutions Solar New York America (PESSNYCA?) and that equipment will be installed and production will begin by summer 2017. In 2014 SolarCity acquired Silevo...
Solar Gainers and Losers
By Harris Roen Five solar stocks announced key updates – three show improved prospects, and two warn of danger. Power REIT (PW) More Info Power REIT will acquire 100 acres of land underlying a 20 megawatt solar array to be developed. The leasee will sell electricity to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE), which should then provide a steady income stream to PW shareholders. The stock price is up 11% for the year, in addition to a yield of 3.9%. Press release ...
Mega-Solar Matchmaking in California
James Montgomery Flexing its billion-dollar muscles once again in the renewable energy space, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company (famously backed by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. ) is buying two co-located solar projects in California from SunPower , billed as the world's largest permitted solar PV power development. The deal for Antelope Valley Solar Projects (AVSP), totaling approximately 579 megawatts (AC) combined generation capacity, is for an unspecified amount between $2-$2.5 billion. To SunPower president Howard Wenger, this deal represents no less than "a historic milestone for the energy industry." Cost-competitive with natural...
Is Timminco For Real?
Timminco (TIMNF.PK or TIM.TO) was, without a doubt, one of the great solar plays of 2007. The Toronto-based company, which has yet to turn a profit, claims it has come up with a process to produce solar-grade metallurgical silicon with cell efficiencies of about 14%. Metallurgical silicon allows for important energy cost savings in the production process (~70%), so being able to approach cell efficiencies reached by conventional solar-grade silicon processes could mean an important cost advantage for metallurgical silicon producers when measured on a per watt basis. Eventually, certain people began publicly doubting Timminco's...
ReneSola Finds Shareholders Hard To Please
Solar project developer ReneSola Ltd. (SOL: NYSE) reported financial results this week for the quarter ending June 2018. Revenue topped $27.8 million in the quarter well below the year ago period when a faster pace of development activity generated $44.8 million in sales. The negative year-over-year comparison was anticipated following the sale of ReneSola’s solar cell manufacturing operations in September 2017. Now the company is making its way with solar project development, engineering services and electricity sales from its owned solar power facilities.
Management had guided for sales in a range of $25 to $30 million in the June 2018 quarter. The good news was that ReneSola...
Finding the Apple Computer of Solar Power
by Joseph McCabe, PE Have you noticed the corporate pitches that compare their products to iPhones or iPads to try and force the feeling that they are "like Apple"? Bill Ford just pitched the Ford electric car in this manner. If Apple is the gold standard, the question becomes, what solar company is closest to being just like Apple? I think the answer is none, at least not yet. The Apple Model Apple has a design culture that attracts design professionals to their product. They also have a completely vertical integrated product where their case, graphical...
Trina Warning Foreshadows Solar Gloom
Doug Young After watching their shares and prospects soar over the past year, solar stocks are suddenly hitting a cloudy patch as investors anxiously wait for most companies to return to the profit column following a 2 year sector downturn. That wait may have just gotten a lot longer, following a warning from Trina (NYSE: TSL) that it will fall far short of its previous sales forecasts for the just-ended first quarter. Trina blames the problem on short-term factors, as it and other Chinese panel makers work to finalize an...
Sol-Wind: New Yieldco With A Tax Twist
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...
China Solar Tariffs Round II, Yingli’s Smart JV
Doug Young The new year has just begun, and already we’re getting signals that 2014 will be full of new twists and surprises for the solar panel sector as it struggles to emerge from its downturn dating back nearly 3 years. A clash involving Chinese panel makers accused by western rivals of receiving unfair state support looks set to enter a new phase, based on an announcement of new action in the US by SolarWorld (Frankfurt: SWV, OTC: SRWRF), the German panel maker that has led the charge against the Chinese companies. Meantime, a separate new joint venture announcement...
Trina Drives Consolidation As Solar Trade War Flares Up
Doug Young As if the solar trade war between the US and China wasn’t bad enough, tensions just got worse with a preliminary ruling in Washington aimed at closing a loophole to a previous ruling imposing anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese solar panels. I’ll admit I was a bit surprised by the preliminary ruling just announced by the US International Trade Commission (ITC), as I’d previously predicted this latest action in the Sino-US solar trade dispute would quickly fizzle. Meantime, industry consolidation is continuing in China, where more than half the world’s solar panels are currently made, with word that...
SunEdison’s Impressive Customers Not Yet Impressing Investors
by Debra Fiakas CFA A series of acquisitions have put SunEdison, Inc. (SUNE: Nasdaq) in the business of solar energy systems. Until recently called MEMC Electronics Materials, the company had been a provider of silicon wafers to semiconductor producers and fabricators. In 2009 and 2010, MEMC acquired SunEdison and Solaicx, respectively. Besides the foundation for a new name, the SunEdison deal gave the company a line of photovoltaic energy solutions to sell to solar system developers and major end users. Solaicx acquisition gave the company access to a proprietary continuous crystal growth manufacturing technology which yields high-efficiency...
China Struggles To Meet Solar Targets
Doug Young Bottom line: China is likely to fall well short of its plan for 35 gigawatts of solar power capacity by the end of next year due to profit-seeking speculation and lack of experience among plant builders and operators. I’ve been quite skeptical for a while about China’s ambitious plans to rapidly build up its solar power capacity, arguing that many of the plants being built are more designed to please central planners in Beijing than of real practical use. Now it seems at least one researcher at a major government institute agrees with that view,...
These Solar Panels Do NOT Work!
By Jeff Siegel Solar Failures Rising Those who wish death upon the solar industry are about to be given a gift. According to a New York Times investigation, reports of defective solar panels are starting to rise just as the industry is on the cusp of significant adoption and expansion. Energy analyst Todd Woody points out that no one is exactly certain how pervasive the problem is, writing: There are no industry-wide figures about defective solar panels. And when defects are discovered, confidentiality agreements often keep the manufacturer's identity secret, making accountability in the industry all the...
Five Solar Stocks For 2015
By Jeff Siegel Times sure have changed! In 2006, I attended my first Solar Power International (SPI) conference in D.C. It was a no-frills event but loaded with valuable information I used to help Energy and Capital readers get a jump on the solar bull market that ran from 2006 to 2008. Truth be told, we cleaned up. But nothing lasts forever. And when the market nosedived in 2008, solar stocks were not exempt from the ravenous bears that mauled everything in their path. Of course, as the broader market began to inch back up in 2010, solar...
Your Solar Panels Aren’t Facing the Wrong Way
Tom Konrad CFA Dilemma Compass photo via Bigstock Contrary to some confused bloggers, solar panels produce the most electricity over the course of a year when pointed south, not west. A recent report from the Pecan Street Research Institute started a chain of articles with increasingly inaccurate conclusions. The lemmings at Quartz, Gizmodo, and Grist, followed each other off the cliff of delusion saying that homeowners could produce more power by pointing their solar panels west, rather than south. (UPDATE: Now even USA Today is jumping off.) The title of...
New Ways to Invest in Solar Like Buffett
Tom Konrad Over the last couple of years, investors who were hoping to do well by doing good have gotten bad sunburns. Since the start of 2011, the two ETFs which track the solar sector, Guggenheim Solar (NYSE:TAN) and Market Vectors Solar Energy (KWT) are down 74% and 75%, respectively, even after the large jumps up in the first week of the year. That jump was in large part caused by the January 2nd purchase of two large solar projects by Warren Buffett controlled MidAmerican Solar from Sunpower Corporation (NASD:SPWR.) You might wonder, Why would...
