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...
The Top Ten PV Manufacturers: What The List Doesn’t Mean
by Paula Mints Every year at this time lists of lessons learned during the previous year give way to lists of top ten PV manufacturers. It’s time to ask what these lists mean, and whether they have a purpose to the ongoing growth and health of the photovoltaic industry. So Many Numbers, So Little Time There is more than one way to size the photovoltaic industry and unfortunately, much of the time are the metrics are considered to be synonymous. The PV industry is sized by capacity, shipments, production, module assembly capacity, installations and...
MEMC and SunEdison, a Tale of Two Companies
by Paula Mints SunEdison (SUNE) has been in the news of late and with a confusing acquisition strategy, interesting financial decisions, layoffs and high debt it is beginning to look a lot like MEMC. This is really a tale of two companies – one a raw material manufacturer and pioneer in silicon wafer technology founded decades ago, the other a pioneering developer in the commercial PV space, and how in becoming one, the combined company took on the personality of the raw material company. In the past MEMC engaged in an aggressive acquisition strategy...
Two Exciting Alternative Energy Themes For Summer
By Harris Roen Summer is here, and the sun has been shining on alternative energy. Two investment themes in the changing alternative energy landscape have emerged as potential profit centers for investors. To take advantage of these trends, the Roen Financial Report has added in four new companies to the list of about 250 alternative energy companies that we track for our readers. Investment Theme #1: The growing domestic Japanese solar market In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan has committed to growing renewables as a domestic energy source. According to Mercom Capital Group,...
From Solar 2009: Investment Opportunities in Solar Stocks: First Solar (FSLR)
Tom Konrad, Ph.D. This continues a series of entries on opportunities in solar stocks, based on a panel at Solar 2009. The first article introduced the panelists, and took a look at the solar sector as a whole. The others focus on individual companies. Pradeep Haldar Investors remain bullish on thin film technologies such as CdTe (First Solar's technology.) CdTe currently has the lowest cost, but it may not have long term sustainability. Peter Lynch on First Solar (FSLR) If First Solar ever stumbles, gravity will take over. They could fall 50% in a day. They...
Community Solar Providers In National Grid Territory
See the Buyer's Guide to New York Community Solar for details on how New York community solar works and lists for other utility territories.
VENDOR NAME
PRICING STRUCTURE
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
SPECIAL OFFERS
Abundant Solar Power
10% discount subscription model
Contract to be signed
Amp Energy
Mostly 10% subscription model
12-month contract with auto-renew option, termination fees waived with proper notice
Astral Power
10% discount subscription model (Broker for solar farms)
No cancellation fee. Bill needed in customer’s name
$100 check and $100 donation to Regional Food Bank of Northeastern NY
Ampion
10% discount subscription model
Free cancellation at any time, excess credit is banked
BlueWave Solar
10% discount subscription model (Broker for solar farms)
Links to own development as...
Solar Christmas: Coal for LDK, JV for Trina
Doug Young Photo by Tom Konrad I thought I’d get into the Christmas spirit in this first work day after Thanksgiving in the US, so let’s take a look at what solar panel makers LDK (NYSE: LDK) and Trina (NYSE: TSL) are getting in their holiday stockings with the latest company news reports. It seems the struggling LDK won’t be getting much, with word that a Chinese court has added further delays to a case where it is owed $40 million in a business dispute...
Trina Solar’s Second Convertible Bond
By Beate Sonerud and Sean Kidney China’s Trina Solar (TSL)is issuing US$100m of convertible bonds with 5-year tenor and 4% annual coupon, with semi-annual payments. An extra US$15m could be raised, as Trina has given the underwriters a 1-month window to buy additional bonds. Guess they are waiting to gauge demand. Underwriters are Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and Credit Suisse, with Roth Capital Partners as co-manager. The bonds can be converted to shares (American Depositary Shares, meaning they are listed in the US) at an initial price of US$14.69 per share. Currently, Trina’s shares are trading at US$11.40, after...
LDK Melts Down, Solar Default Signs Grow
Doug Young One of China’s 2 major meltdowns in the solar panel sector has taken a big step forward with word that trading in shares of LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) has been suspended and the de-listing process formally begun as the company liquidates. Meantime, word of a missed interest payment by a building materials maker is sending the latest signal that China will let more companies in ailing sectors default on their debt rather than pay off their creditors. That’s an important signal for the solar sector, which relies heavily on such debt to finance its operations and where...
What Just Happened: Chinese Solar-Boom or Bubble?
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. China’s 2016 market for solar deployment soars to near 30-GWp: Solar PV deployment in China ballooned in 2016 to...
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...
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...
Right About Tesla, Wrong About Yingli
Doug Young Bottom line: Beijing should promote cutting-edge companies like Tesla that can help advance its new energy agenda, while abandoning ones like Yingli that use old technology to make cheap copycat products. Two green energy stories were in the headlines last week, spotlighting China’s drive to become a global leader in the new technology and also the right and wrong ways to achieve that aim. An item involving US electric vehicle (EV) powerhouse Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) represented the right approach, with reports that the company might near a deal with Beijing to build a manufacturing plant in China....
SolarCity: Sunburn, or Healthy Glow?
By Harris Roen SolarCity (SCTY) fell 9.1% Wednesday when the company released its first quarter earnings report, but gained all of it back and then Thursday on huge volume. Still, the stock has plummeted 22% in three months, and is down 37% from its highs in February 2014. Is this just a healthy correction from its outsized 400%+ gains from the IPO just 17 months ago? Or have we entered into a new lower trading range more in line with financial realties? This article will analyze current developments to this distinctive energy stock, and project where...
US Closes Solar Tariff Loophole
Doug Young In a move that should surprise no one, the US has announced it will levy new punitive tariffs on China-made solar panels to close a loophole from an earlier ruling. This move won’t help anyone and could seriously stifle the industry’s development just as it starts to emerge from a prolonged downturn. It also looks worrisome from a broader perspective for Chinese panel makers, since signs are emerging that their products could also be shunned in Japan and India, 2 of the world’s other promising emerging markets for solar power plant construction. I’ll return...
Price Pressure Will Squeeze Solar Inverter Revenues
James Montgomery SMA Solar inverter photo by Claus Ableiter In a new report, IHS says worldwide solar inverter unit shipments will rise 7 percent this year, but PV inverter revenues are heading the opposite way, a 9 percent decline this year to $6.4 billion, worse than the firm's earlier prediction of a 5 percent drop. (2014 will see a 9 percent rebound in revenues back to around $7.0 billion, while shipments will surge 19 percent to more than 41 GW.) That's because overall inverter prices are sinking fast, sliding to...
