Solar Photovoltaic

The London Accord took a look at what portfolio theory would suggest as the most effective ways to address Climate Change.  Knowing which technologies don't make the cut is at least as useful as knowing which technologies do. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA I recently looked at a paper from the London Accord which used portfolio theory to recommend the best mixes of technologies to deliver different levels of carbon abatement.  The most useful technologies to achieve the needed levels of carbon abatement were Forestry, Hydropower, Biofuels, Wind, Efficiency, and Geothermal. I suggested stocks that investors might consider to invest in...

Garvin Jabusch Tom Konrad has kindly provided an opportunity for me to contribute a response to his recent piece “Inverter Stocks: A Value BOS Play on Solar.” I’m grateful for the opportunity because it gives me the chance to discuss these stocks and along the way to clear up some misconceptions it seems may exist regarding Green Alpha’s portfolios and our vision of the next economy. Tom wrote, for example, that “Garvin... has been making the case that the solar sell off is irrational on this blog since...

Doug Young As the solar panel sector continues its painful overhaul, signals are emerging about who will survive the downturn and thrive when the industry returns to health. Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) certainly seems to be one of the strongest players coming out of the retrenchment, with word that the company has sold 4 more plants that it constructed to private buyers. Canadian Solar is quickly emerging as a strong executor of this particular strategy, which sees it construct power plants using its own solar cells and then eventually selling those plants to private sector buyers. Rival Suntech...

Doug Young President Obama's election victory has dominated US headlines over the last 2 days, but Washington showed it was still hard at work with news that the Commerce Department has finalized punitive anti-dumping tariffs against Chinese solar panel makers. In a way, this kind of quiet ending seems appropriate for a drawn-out process that began more than a year ago with a Congressional probe into a bankrupt US solar firm. With this trade issue now resolved, China, which produces more than half of the world's solar panels, can now focus on simply saving an industry that is...

By. Dr. John C.K. Daly The ongoing tragedy of Japan's Daichi Fukshima nuclear complex will prove to be a boon for renewable energy in Japan, and astute investors should begin carefully to follow Tokyo's new priorities. Before the March 11 twin disasters of a massive earthquake followed by a devastating tsunami, about 30 percent of Japan's electricity was generated by nuclear power, and Tokyo had ambitious plans to raise its market share to 50 percent over the next two decades, with renewable accounting for 20 percent, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan told journalists earlier last month. ...

by Clean Energy Intel Late last month, I discussed the fact that in another sign of the undervaluation in the Solar sector, the Board of Renesola (SOL) had authorized a $100m share repurchase program. On the day of the company's announcement, its stock price was down 66% on the year. You can read more detail on the original share repurchase program and the related shareholder rights program here. As a follow-up to the original announcement, Renesola has now released details of the progress that has so far been made in executing the program. The Company itself has purchased 645,424 American Depositary Shares...

Garvin Jabusch Kam Mofid has a more long-term vision than most CEOs. His emphasis on the next earnings per share (EPS) report and his obsession with short-term focus are minimal relative to America's typical boss. He's not primarily managing to the next quarter. His company, RGS Energy (ticker symbol: RGSE), is a solar-module installer, mainly in the residential vertical. RGSE doesn't directly compete with most solar panel manufacturers. Instead, it provides residential rooftop installation distribution for them. It then captures lease payments and revenues from selling excess electrical generation to the grid (in states that allow it). Whereas First...

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. The high efficiency monocrystalline cell pioneer and manufacturer SunPower (SPWR) began signaling its competitive struggle in early 2016 and...

by Clean Energy Intel In a further sign of the continue supply-demand imbalance in the solar sector, weekly data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance suggests that the spot price of polysilicon, the raw material used in most solar panels, accelerated to the downside last week, falling at the fastest pace since June. Prices of solar wafers and cells also continued their decline: 'The average selling price dropped 5.8 percent on the week to Oct. 10 to $43.78 per kilogram, according to the latest results from the London-based research firm’s survey of contracts conducted from Oct. 3 to...

By Jeff Siegel The road into the digital age has been paved with innovation. Everyday items have been electrified with panels and displays for endless possibilities of interaction. Automobile windscreens, household appliances, even walls and furniture are lighting up all around us, wired with sensors and displays that receive and transmit information. It seems the only surface left to electrify on this road to an everything-digital future is the roadway itself. Some folks believe one day soon, your local road network could be carrying not only the flow of vehicle traffic, but torrential flows of digital data and...

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...

James Montgomery First Solar (NASD:FSLR) is arguably the leader in thin-film solar photovoltaics (PV). It's relentlessly inched up conversion efficiencies of its cadmium-telluride (CdTe) technology, while chipping away at manufacturing costs (now at $0.67, reported in November). The current NREL-confirmed record holder for CdTe at 14.4% total area efficiency and 17.3% cell efficiency, First Solar's module efficiency in production in November 2012 was 12.7% (average), and its roadmap (last updated Dec. 2011) projects a goal of 14.5%-15.0% average efficiency for production modules by the end of 2015. In the company's 3Q12 earnings presentation, CEO Jim...

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...

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...