Solar Photovoltaic

2011 Report Card plus my 2012 trends and predictions. by Edgar Gunther Contrary to my stated goal, the Photovoltaics: 8 Trends to Watch in 2011 review and 2012 photovoltaic (PV) trends and predictions post has once again extended well into February. As usual, I won’t be grading on a curve. Photovoltaic Market Demand Growth Last year, I said: In 2011, I predict at least 35% global PV installation demand growth despite Feed-in Tariff (FiT) headwinds in Germany, Italy, France, the UK, Ontario, and the Czech Republic. Grade: Pass To be...

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...

Doug Young Bottom line: New signals indicate Beijing plans to move aggressively to prevent solar panel makers from adding unneeded new capacity to help their local governments meet economic growth targets. A new low-key announcement from Beijing is hinting at a quiet struggle taking place behind the scenes in China’s promising but embattled solar panel sector, with the regulator saying it will stop the building of most new manufacturing capacity. On one side of this struggle are local government officials, who may be encouraging solar panel makers in their areas to add capacity that will benefit their...

Doug Young Bottom line: Trina’s plan to separately list its solar plant-building assets is likely to meet with lukewarm to frosty demand. A new plan by Trina (NYSE: TSL) to separately list some capital-intensive assets has overtones of desperation. The intense pressure solar panel makers continue to feel as their sector still struggles to recover from a downturn that dates back 4 years due to massive oversupply. Panel prices have rebounded somewhat over the last 2 years and many of the best-run companies have returned to profitability during that time. Even better performers like Trina are feeling pressure...

Tom Konrad CFA A new report from GTM research, “PV Technology, Production and Cost Outlook: 2012-2016” predicts continued contraction in PV manufacturing.  While recent price declines have driven record-breaking installations, it has also driven most manufacturers’ margins into the red.  You can’t make up for negative margins on volume. For a stock market investor, the best approach to a cut-throat industry is to stay away until competition and lower prices remove or absorb the excess capacity, and to buy the remaining players just before the industry’s prospects revive. As you can see from the chart above,...

Doug Young There're quite a few news bits coming from the solar sector today, with more downbeat news from struggling LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) even as 2 western panel makers make important new inroads to the China market. Meantime, Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) is also getting some good news in the form of new financing from a major western commercial lender for a new solar power project in Canada. Let's start with the LDK news, as it's easily the most downbeat in this flurry of new reports. For anyone who doesn't follow the sector too closely, LDK is...

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,...

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...

By Jeff Siegel DISCLOSURE: Long SCTY. It wasn't an April Fool's Day gag when I said it was time to buy SolarCity Corp. (NASDAQ: SCTY) at the beginning of the month. After a brief standstill, the company's battery-backed solar projects have begun to move forward again. The State of California Public Utilities Commission has added an important item to its May 15 agenda that will make a huge difference for SolarCity. Utility companies may finally be blocked from imposing big fees on battery-backed solar systems. For more than a year, California's largest utilities companies demanded...

by Debra Fiakas Smilers never lose And frowners never win So let the sun shin in Face it with a grin Open up your heart and let the sun shine in. Age of Aquarius The Fifth Dimension, 1969 Investors have not opened their hearts or pocket books for Entech Solar, Inc. (ENSL:  OTC/BB) despite its products that do indeed let the sun shine in, that is into commercial and industrial buildings through innovative tubular skylights.  Shares of Entech Solar are currently priced below a dime.   Entech has also developed a concentrating solar module marketed...

Doug Young Bottom line: Complaints of problems from a major solar plant builder reflect the difficulty of new construction in China, and could wreak havoc on the sales and finances of panel makers and their construction partners. Solar entrepreneur Shi complains of bureaucracy Two solar energy news items are showing both the attraction and also the frustration that developers are feeling as they try to build new clean-energy power plants to help China wean itself from its dependence on fossil fuels. On the attraction side of the story, the industry...

Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA I first wrote about Power REIT (NYSE MKT:PW) in 2012, when the tiny real estate investment trust unveiled its plans to become what would have been the first Yieldco by investing in the land underlying solar and wind farms... before the term 'Yieldco' had even been invented.  In the years since, the company made some progress buying land under solar farms.  According to the most recent shareholder presentation, they now own land under seven solar farms totaling 601 acres and 108 MW, in addition to their legacy railroad asset.  These assets produce...

by Paula Mints CdTe and crystalline manufacturer and project developer First Solar (FSLR) announced positive results for Q1 as well as a switch in strategy emphasis from deployment to module sales. Honestly, revenues, positive net income and other financial metrics matter less in this case than the company’s strategy switch to module sales. Downward price pressure and margin compression along with continued aggressive pricing from China makes this move confusing. Cost leadership is mutable in the PV industry and it is difficult to imagine that First Solar will have an advantage in this regard for long. ...

James Montgomery First Solar (FSLR) has added another mega-scale project to its pipeline, helping ensure there's enough to feed its thin-film solar PV manufacturing machine. Rock formations in Clark County, NV. Photo by John Fowler The 250-MW Moapa project being developed by K Road in Clark County, Nevada, about 30 miles north of Las Vegas, was given a green light last summer, making it the first major U.S. solar project approved on tribal land. Construction has been pushed back roughly a year from the original timeline, with First Solar now saying...

Doug Young Lofty targets contained in a new report show that China intends to push ahead with ambitious plans to build up its renewable energy sector. But perhaps the most interesting thing about this new report is word that Beijing finally intends to sharply reduce the inflated state-set fees now paid for solar and wind-produced power, in one of the sharpest indicators that it expects the industry to stop depending on government support and become commercially viable on its own. Such state support through a wide array of measures, which also include export credits and low-interest loans,...

by Sneha Shah LDK Solar (NYSE:LDK) which used to be the biggest solar wafer producer has completely stopped production of polysilicon and sharply reduced shipments to preserve cash. The company is effectively bankrupt and surviving due the largesse of state owned Chinese banks which have given $3 billion in loans to the company. LDK has almost no chance of paying down this monstrous debt given that it has been operating on negative gross margins for the last few quarters. LDK cost structure is way too high compared to its competitors LDK has a much higher cost structure in...