Solar: More Downside Risk Before Buying Opportunity Emerges
by Clean Energy Intel In the past month since we recommended taking profits on our Tier One Chinese Solar trade, the sector has been hit heavily – largely driven by margin erosion and a generally less than encouraging earnings season. The key question from here is whether or not we are once again at prices which offer a buying opportunity. The answer is probably not quite yet. Source: Barchart The chart above shows the percentage change in three Chinese tier one solar stocks plus the solar ETF TAN in the period since...
Ascent Solar: Grounded
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...
SolarWindow: A Unique But Risky Opportunity
by Debra Fiakas, CFA
SolarWindow (WNDW: OTC/QB) raised $25 million this week to build a manufacturing plant for its electricity-generating glass. Three investors subscribed to 16.7 million shares of common stock. The company is getting $19.8 million in new capital in addition to conversion of $3.6 million in debt to common stock.
The SolarWindow is unlike any other energy producing innovation. Rather than relying some sort of dedicated production plant or facility, the SolarWindow is a part of the electricity user’s own facility. Ultra-thin layers of liquid coatings are sprayed onto a glass surface, forming a network or array of miniature solar cells.
This is a type of photovoltaic technology that uses...
US Still Net Exporter of Solar to China
by Clean Energy Intel Following the announcement that CIGS solar start-up Solyndra had declared Chapter 11, I published an article suggesting that although this was clearly not good news, the overall solar sector in the US was still in relatively good competitive shape, with a healthy trade surplus with the rest of the world of some $1.9bn. You can read my original article here. Although competition from China is intense, particularly in low-cost module production, the US remains a strong player across the supply chain as a whole - particularly in polysilicon production and the manufacture of the...
Who’s on First, What’s on Second and Why It Does and Does Not Matter
by Paula Mints Sizing the supply side of the global PV industry has never been easy. As annual shipments grew to gigawatt heights outsourcing increased in tandem making it almost impossible to settle on a reliable number for the size of the industry in any given year. Outsourcing, a common practice in all industries, takes place when one manufacturer buys a product or component from another manufacturer. In the PV industry, manufacturer A buys cells from manufacturer B, assembles the cells into modules and includes these modules in its in-house production. When both manufacturers report the resulting...
Evergreen Solar and Solyndra Fail: Is Wall Street’s Hatred of the Solar Industry Still...
Garvin Jabusch Much has been made this week about the nearly contemporaneous bankruptcy filings of two American solar companies, Silicon Valley’s Solyndra and Evergreen Solar (formerly ESLR) out of Massachusetts. These two had something in common: Both made different types of photovoltaic (PV) panels and both were more expensive than average PV. These two firms did not fail because they manufactured in America, or because solar itself is untenable (on the contrary), but primarily because they were deploying advanced technology that ultimately could not find enough of a market to achieve the scale required to become profitable. It's...
Signs Of Trouble For Chinese Solar Stocks
Doug Young Regular readers will know I’m a bit bearish lately on the solar panel manufacturing sector, largely because I believe its recent rebound is being fueled as much by hype as real business after a prolonged downturn. A new report on some of the sector’s so called “growth engines”, coupled with a separate report on a dispute at one of the top surviving players, are adding fuel to my skepticism that the sector’s recent sharp rebound isn’t really happening. At the very least, the recent reports indicate the rebound isn’t nearly as strong as many are claiming,...
The Solar Industry’s Supply Chain Problems
by Paula Mints
The solar industry has a supply chain problem – no, not just the current polysilicon and glass constraints. Solar wafer, ingot, cell, and module manufacturing are concentrated in China and South East Asia, leaving buyers outside these areas vulnerable to supply chain shocks.
Countries in this region have lower labor costs, lower energy costs, and higher incentives and subsidies for manufacturers. In China, manufacturing is supported (and controlled) by the central government.
Manufacturers in China, who have expanded into South East Asia, can make do with lower
margins than their counterparts in other countries. Manufacturers in South East Asia and China...
What Just Happened: First Solar’s Strategy Shifts
2016 was a wild year and not just for solar and after decades of reliance on government incentives, subsidies and mandates the global solar industry may be inured to unpredictability but the industry as a whole should be wary of global trends. Solar PV expert Paula Mints looked at a number of the developments for solar companies in the December edition of SPV Market Research's Solar Flare. Adapted for AltEnergyStocks.com, this series of articles is reprinted with permission.
Though First Solar (FSLR) indicated recently that 2017 would be a transition year there is no indication from the company’s behavior...
Enphase Acquires O&M Provider Next Phase Solar
Meg Cichon Enphase (ENPH) has been slowly inching its way into the solar service business on both a residential and commercial scale, and may even tap utility-scale projects in the near future, according to Marty Rogers, Enphase’s vice president of worldwide customer service and support. Last year Enphase announced a partnership with solar crowdfunding platform Mosaic to offer O&M services to residential solar loan customers. More recently, it announced a commercial O&M offering that combines its C250 commercial microinverter technology with services that assist the design, installation and maintenance of solar projects, including cloud-based monitoring and a dedicated service...
Solar Stocks Will Continue to Outperform But Remain Volatile
By Harris Roen The market is starting to notice that solar investing has been extremely profitable in 2013. As of the middle of September, the average solar stock is up over 50% in the past year, and over 15% in three months (that’s over 60% annualized!). These returns are taken from a broad list of about 60 publically traded companies in the solar industry (see chart above). Though all are involved in solar, solar may not be the primary business of many of these companies. For example, Panasonic (PCRFY) produces photovoltaics, but it is only a small...
Get Ready for a Revival in Solar Tech Investments
James Montgomery The Skies are Brightening as Manufacturers Resume Spending to Improve Efficiency Slumping solar PV equipment spending has finally bottomed out, and we're about to witness a "revival" in investments that will finally close the yawning gap between oversupply and demand, according to a pair of analysts reports. Solar PV manufacturers spent nearly $13 billion in 2011, but then their investments plunged more than 70 percent to $3.6 billion in 2012, and will probably drop another 36 percent this year to $2.3 billion, the lowest level since 2006, says Jon-Frederick Campos, analyst with IHS...
Beijing Bails Out Yingli, Shareholders Not So Much
Bottom line: Yingli’s new bank loan will be followed by a major restructuring that will force big losses on bond and shareholders, while a new asset-backed bond program to help the broader panel sector raise money will meet with tepid reception. China is throwing a couple of lifelines to its struggling solar panel sector, including a relatively large rescue package for Yingli (NYSE: YGE), the player in the most precarious position. That package will see a consortium of banks, led by the policy-driven China Development Bank, provide Yingli with 2 billion yuan ($300 million) in funds as the company...
RGS Energy: Troubling Inconsistencies
Garvin Jabusch About three weeks ago, I posted a piece called "RGS Energy, Tempered, Opportunistic Growth," an optimistic bit of coverage on one of our holdings, (RGSE), that included an 18-month price target of $10.00 per share. Since then, several developments and pieces of information have come to light that have caused us to revise our assessment of the company. Thursday, July 3, a quiet half-market day, RGS Energy released a statement announcing plans to monetize its previously filed potential shelf offering; "RGS Energy (NASDAQ: RGSE) has entered into a definitive agreement to raise approximately $7.0 million in a...
Introducing PERGY
Impressed by the number of stocks in the Crystal Equity Research alternative energy indices that have delivered exceptional price appreciation, the last few posts have been on a quest to find fundamental characteristics that could give an advance signal of a future star. The post “Alternative Returns” on May 8th introduced the series identified future growth as a precursor of strong stock performance. The next post “Quest for Growth” on May 11th looked at stocks with above average growth predictions. Then the post “Alternative Bargains” looked at stocks in the alternative energy indices that are trading at below average price-earnings multiples.
There is a...
SolarCity Buys Silevo for $200 Million, Plans GW Factory in NY
Meg Cichon Silevo's Triex Solar Technology In an effort to further streamline its solar business and lower the overall cost of solar energy, SolarCity (SCTY) announced today that it would acquire high-efficiency cell manufacturer Silevo for $200 million. In an effort to scale up the technology, SolarCity plans to construct a 1-GW manufacturing facility located in Buffalo, New York within the next two years. The solar leasing company acquired mounting company Zep Solar in late 2013 in an effort to further vertically integrate its business. Now, chairman Elon...
