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...
Solar Storage Dream Becomes Reality
By Jeff Siegel While the solar industry continues to heat up, I maintain that one of the best plays in the space is SunEdison (NYSE: SUNE). This is an aggressive operation, run by incredibly smart people. The company is well-capitalized, fairly liquid, and well-diversified in the energy space, boasting both a top-notch, vertically-integrated solar operation, and a basket of healthy wind assets, too. The company is also now advancing on energy storage – the final obstacle to the creative destruction necessary to alleviate the world's reliance on fossil fuels. In a press release this morning, SunEdison made the following...
Four Green Money Managers’ Top Stock Picks
Green money managers' stock picks after the Japanese nuclear crisis. Even as the nuclear disaster in Japan unfolds, it's clear that the world's energy industry will be forever changed. Russian reactors were never considered safe, but a Japanese to have a nuclear meltdown is an entirely different story. Market Reaction Since Monday, nuclear stocks and ETFs have been plummeting. As of Wednesday night, The Market Vectors Uranium + Nuclear Energy ETF (NYSE:NLR), the iShares S&P Global Nuclear Energy Index (NASD:NUCL), PowerShares Global Nuclear Energy Portfolio ETF (NYSE:PKN), and the Global X Uranium ETF (NYSE:URA) are down...
The Ghost of Solyndra Haunts Chinese Solar Stocks
Doug Young The solar sector’s slow recovery is receiving some new setbacks in the form of lawsuits by 2 bankrupt US companies against Yingli (NYSE: YGE), Trina (NYSE: TSL) and Suntech (NYSE: STP), the last of which is also in bankruptcy reorganization. Adding to the mess, Suntech has just disclosed that more of its European assets have been seized by the Italian courts, throwing yet another new complication into its ongoing reorganization. This growing tide of litigation is somewhat expected, as investors try to recover whatever money they can following the sector’s spectacular crash over the last two...
The Battle For the Heart of Suntech
Doug Young Dr. Zhengrong Shi Suntech Founder, Chairman and CSO. Photo credit: Suntech Solar panel maker LDK (NYSE: LDK) started its long march to a takeover by the state with a major stake sale this week, but the equally cash-starved Suntech (NYSE: STP) looks like it may put up a bigger fight to maintain its independence. What's happening at Suntech comes down to a single word: Pride. The latest twist at Suntech also has broader implications, as the kind of pride we're seeing...
Canadian Solar Caps 2013 With Mega-Deals
Doug Young Canadian Solar "caps" 2013 with big solar deals The year 2013 will go down as a major turning point for China’s solar panel makers, with some names emerging as new sector leaders after a prolonged downturn while others quietly disappeared. The latter category saw former leader Suntech (OTC: STPFQ) go bankrupt and LDK (NYSE: LDK) quietly sell off many of its assets, while the former category has seen Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) and Shunfeng (HKEx: 1165) emerge as names to watch in the future. Canadian Solar...
Intermolecular’s Solar Strategy Rising During Industry Eclipse
Tom Konrad CFA Solar Eclipse at Sunrise photo via Bigstock Solar module prices have fallen 50% in the last six months. This is great news for solar consumers, but has meant deep pain for solar manufacturers. Just last week, GE Energy (NYSE:GE) laid off workers and put expansion plans at their Colorado factory on hold for at least 18 months while they try to improve the Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) thin film solar technology they plan to produce there. That move followed the bankruptcy of another thin film producer...
Suntech’s Woes Drag On
Doug Young The woes at fast-fading former solar superstar Suntech Power (NYSE: STP) keep on coming, with the company releasing its latest earnings report that shows its woes are likely to continue until its increasingly inevitable takeover by the state. That takeover, if and when it comes, is likely to be as filled with fireworks as Suntech's actual decline, with all signs indicating that founder Shi Zhengrong won't easily yield control of his company to the government-backed funding sources he needs to provide it with desperately needed new capital. Before we delve too deeply into that...
The Solar Industry’s Prolonged Adolescence And What Maturity Will Look Like
by Paula Mints
Every day the solar industry’s maturity is announced in company meetings, at conferences, in articles, and on Twitter, among other means, and through various media. The industry’s presumed maturity is held as a badge of its success by most and used as a PR message by many.
The assumption of the industry’s maturity, primarily based on its size, low module prices, and low tender bidding, things that taken either individually or as a whole does not indicate ma-turity. Teenagers, after all, exhibit growth spurts even as their brains continue to develop through their early twenties.
Teenagers also declare their...
Asia-Pacific Demand To Help Sector Re-Balance
by Clean Energy Intel Asia Pacific Market Demand By Region Source: NPD SolarBuzz: Asia Pacific Major PV Markets Quarterly New data published today by SolarBuzz in their Asia Pacific Major PV Markets Quartely points to a surge in new installations in both China and the Asia Pacific region as a whole. Indeed, the region seems likely to add a total of 2 GW of new installations in Q4 of this year. This is good news for the solar industry and could help bring supply and demand in...
Chinese Solar Cos Go Shopping To Avoid Troubles At Home
Doug Young Bottom line: Sputtering progress for China’s solar power build-up could erode domestic panel makers’ performance, prompting some to buy more overseas assets to avoid punitive trade barriers in the west. The latest trouble signs in China’s ambitious solar power build-up are coming in newly released quarterly results from Trina (NYSE: TSL), which has reduced its annual sales targets after scrapping one of its planned new projects in the country. At the same time, China’s industry continues to look for ways to circumvent anti-dumping tariffs in the west by setting up off-shore production and purchasing foreign assets to...
Inverter Stocks: A Backdoor to Solar and Wind Energy
Avoiding the Rush Whenever there is a gold rush, the people who make the real money are seldom the gold miners, but rather the suppliers to the miners that come home with the lion's share of the profits. This is not because there is not an incredible amount of money to be made in mining gold, but because the nature of a gold rush is that too many optimistic miners are encouraged by the early profits of a few to rush to pursue too few opportunities. To many, the rush into solar stocks seems to be just...
Suntech Forced into Bankruptcy, Yingli Partners with GCL
Doug Young The inevitable has finally happened at tanking former solar star Suntech (NYSE: STP), which has been forced into bankruptcy ending a months-long battle between the company's founder Shi Zhengrong and just about all the company's other stakeholders. In the meantime, I would be remiss not to mention another solar news tidbit that has panel maker Yingli (NYSE: YGE) forming a new strategic tie-up with GLC-Poly Energy (HKEx: 3800), in what could eventually become the first mega-merger in the struggling solar panel sector. Let's start with Suntech, which has been in the headlines nearly non-stop these...
Yingli Can Make Debt Payment, But It’s Still Weak
Doug Young Bottom line: Yingli appears to be in financial distress but will avoid defaulting on debt obligations coming due next week, while China’s broader solar panel sector is likely to face new anti-dumping tariffs in Europe later this year. The solar panel sector has become quite a turbulent place these days, riding high one day on reports of major new plant construction, only to stumble the next on signs of conflict and financial distress. This kind of conflicting news reflects the fact that the industry is still in the midst of a major overhaul that could...
SolarCity Shows Private Sector Can Respond To Funding Gap Left By DOE
by Clean Energy Intel Solar City has today announced that it has obtained private sector financing for its SolarStrong Project to put solar on the rooftops of 120,000 military homes across the US over a five year period. Bank of America (BAC) has now agreed to provide the finance, though the project has been slightly downsized from it original target of 160,000 homes. This is very good news for the solar sector. SolarCity had of course been let down by the DOE, which in the immediate aftermath of the Solyndra affair had said that it could not complete SolarCity´s...
Chinese Solar Stocks Sell Off on Suntech Delay
Doug Young Solar investors are feeling decidedly bearish this week, bidding down shares in most major solar panel makers even as a few major names including Suntech Power (NYSE: STP), Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) and JinkoSolar (NYSE: JKS) tried to prime the market with upbeat news. But truth be told, the news from all 3 of these companies looks marginally positive at best, which clearly wasn't enough for investors who have grown tired of the non-stop bad news from an industry that has been struggling for 2 years now due to massive oversupply. Let's start our solar...
