The Most Sustainable Solar Companies
Ed Gunther Trina Solar scores 94 to lead the 2012 SVTC photovoltaic (PV) solar sustainability survey. Making the SEIA Solar Commitment. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) released the 2012 SOLAR SCORECARD just in time for the SNEC 6th (2012) International Solar Industry and Photovoltaic Exhibition & Conference in Shanghai, China. Trina Solar Limited (NYSE:TSL) achieved the best result followed by SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR) at 93, and CASM (Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing) protagonist SolarWorld AG (OTC:SRWRF) with 91. In SVTC’s own words: The Scorecard reveals how companies perform on...
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...
EU Cracks Down on Solar Cheats
Doug Young Bottom line: The EU will impose anti-dumping tariffs on all Chinese solar panel makers by year end, and will refuse to negotiate any new agreements to mediate the issue unless Beijing becomes directly involved. A crackdown has officially begun on Chinese solar panel makers who skirted a deal to avoid anti-dumping tariffs in Europe, with word that the EU has taken formal action to punish 3 violators. The action will see anti-dumping tariffs imposed on Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ), ReneSola (NYSE: SOL) and ET Solar, reviving a threat they previously avoided by agreeing to voluntarily...
Canadian Solar’s Chinese Loan
Doug Young China’s struggling solar panel makers must are slowly transforming into de facto state-owned enterprises as they take increasing loans from Beijing, with Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) becoming the latest to take a handout from the policy lender China Development Bank (CDB). If Beijing is trying to convince Europe and the US that it’s not unfairly supporting its solar sector, then this certainly isn’t the way to do it. But that said, I doubt that Canadian Solar or many of its peers could get financing to maintain their operations from any true private sector banks right now,...
Bargain Priced Alternative Energy Stocks
A review of Crystal Equity Research’s novel alternative energy indices found a number of companies that have delivered exceptional price appreciation over the last year. Several were reviewed in the recent post “Alternative Returns” on May 8th. Expectations for growth appeared to be driving the price movement, so the last post “Quest for Growth” featured four companies from the indices for which analysts have posted high growth predictions. Not unexpectedly some investors have already bid higher the stocks of those promising companies.
In this post we go back to the lists to find the companies with both high growth predictions and low price-earnings...
New Energy Exchange Limited Has A Market Cap of $3 Million, But Owns $54...
Esplanade Capital Issues Open Letter to the Board of New Energy Exchange Limited Urges the Company to Reregister with the SEC to Maximize Value for Shareholders Esplanade Capital LLC, a significant shareholder of New Energy Exchange Limited (OTC PINK: EBODF), announced today that it has issued an open letter to the Board urging the Company to reregister with the SEC in order to maximize value for shareholders. The full text of the letter follows: April 25, 2017 New Energy Exchange Limited (f.k.a. Renewable Energy Trade Board Corp.) Board of Directors Shun Tak Centre West Tower...
First Solar Won the Race; The Environment Lost
Joseph McCabe, PE In 2011, I wrote about the CdTe Horse Race in which the three US companies making cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV) modules, First Solar (FSLR), Abound Solar and General Electric (GE Solar, stock ticker GE) jostled for position. Abound and GE were challenging the reigning champion First Solar to build the largest PV manufacturing facility in the world. The official results of that race are in, and First Solar has beaten the competition by many lengths. Within about a year of each other both Abound and GE Solar...
China Struggles To Meet Solar Targets
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,...
LDK CEO Removed in Continuing China-Backed Rescue
Doug Young After a week of unusual quiet on the stormy solar panel front, the sector is splashing back into the headlines with word that struggling LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) is moving one step closer to a state-led takeover of the debt laden company. Meantime, China is also taking its own broader moves against recent protectionist actions in the West by lodging an official complaint at the World Trade Organization against what it is calling unfair treatment of its companies in Europe. Let's take a look at the LDK news first, as it's the most dramatic and...
Yingli Queues Up For Next Chinese Solar Bailout
Doug Young Yingli (NYSE: YGE) has become the latest player in China’s struggling solar sector to get a lifeline from Beijing, as an interesting picture starts to emerge of the relative health of the sector’s major players and who is likely to lead a coming consolidation. The list of who gets these lifelines could also reflect the relative importance Beijing places on China’s wide and varied field of solar panel and panel component makers, meaning some of these lifeline recipients could emerge as potential leaders to help consolidate the sector in the months ahead.I should make a big...
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...
Brilliant Light Power – Commercialization Status
by Daryl Roberts
A potentially paradigm-shifting technology has been under development at an R&D firm in NJ called Brilliant Light Power. For people monitoring the situation, the question currently is about the status of commercialization. It is not a publicly held firm, but is in mid-stages of private equity capitalization in the range of $100-120M.
I recently read a book titled "Randall Mills and the Search for Hydrino Energy", offering a detailed and compelling history of the development of this novel renewable energy technology, authored by an insider, an intern who stayed on to work there for several years (published in...
Trina Solar Factory Tour: Addressing Environmnetal & Quality Concerns
by Tor Valenza a.k.a. “Solar Fred” This article is part of a multi-part series published at Renewable Energy World. You can read the other parts here: one, two, three, and four. The Trina Solar (TSL) factory tour and testing facility tour is over. It took perhaps an hour, maybe less. The next stop is a small auditorium where Ben Hill, Trina’s VP of sales, gives us a PowerPoint presentation that includes Trina’s history, market share, company philosophy, and their Formula 1 racing branding initiative. Afterward, Trina’s CEO, Jifan Gao, appears, and we are able to ask him questions through...
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...
After Solyndra and Evergreen, Welcome to the Age of Solar PV Commoditization (And 5...
by Tor Valenza a.k.a. “Solar Fred” It’s official. With the bankruptcies of Solyndra and Evergreen, two solar panel companies with unique premium solar PV technologies, the Market with a capital M hath spoken: “Solar PV manufacturers, we, the purchasers of solar PV, do hereby care more about price than any fancy innovation. Just give us the best quality panel for the lowest $/watt, thank you very much.” String ribbon doesn’t matter. Cylindrical CIGS film doesn’t matter. Even made in America doesn’t matter unless it's at a competitive price. Apparently, all the Market wants to know are the...
Cree, a Solar Play?
For investors excited about Cree's (NASD:CREE) Light-Emitting Diode (LED) business, here's one more piece of good news: The EE Times Reports that the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Freiburg, Germany) claims it has achieved a record efficiency for its inverter designed for PV generators, using Cree's SiC transistors. I've previously noted that inverters are a good way to participate in the Solar and Wind power markets without needing to invest in the high priced (or foreign) companies which dominate those markets, and even without this news, Cree is a longtime favorite of this blog. The stock shot up...
