Solar Photovoltaic

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...

by Paula Mints In June, Tesla (TSLA) announced it would shut down some of its solar installation stores, end its agreement to sell solar systems through Home Depot and either lay off or reassign affected workers. Tesla indicated that this was part of its overall plan, that is, business as usual. Comment: In 2016, Elon Musk, oops, Tesla adopted, oops, acquired, SolarCity from his cousins, oops, SolarCity shareholders for $2.6-million, oops, $2.6 billion, ramming the deal down skeptical shareholder’s throats, oops, making an economically rational case for the deal. A shareholder lawsuit is working its way through the courts. SolarCity, the pioneer...

Tom Konrad CFA Solar installation is a low margin business with low barriers to entry, but consolidation may bring competitive advantages in some sectors of the market. I recently took a look at Principal Solar (PSWW.PK), a reverse-merger solar developer roll-up play, and found it remarkably lacking in hard data.  But there are a handful of other publicly traded pure-play solar installer/developers, as well as vertically integrated solar manufacturers like First Solar Inc (FSLR) which have been developing projects with their own panels, and solar developer-operators like Etrion Corp. (ETRXF.PK). The Shape of the Solar Installation...

Silevo's Triex Solar Technology By Jeff Siegel DISCLOSURE: Long SCTY. SolarCity Corp. (NASDAQ: SCTY) has signed a deal to acquire Silevo, a solar panel technology and manufacturing company on June 16th. With Silevo now in the fold, SolarCity is in discussions with the state of New York to build a new manufacturing plant with a targeted capacity in excess of one gigawatt – within two years. Upon completion, this will be one of the largest solar panel production plants in the world. Although there are plenty...

Doug Young A mini flurry of news from embattled solar panel makers seems to have the same singular message, designed to tell investors that they can survive an industry crisis now entering its third year. Of course the companies that emerge when the crisis finally subsidies could be far different from the ones that went into the crisis, which seems to be the message from LDK (NYSE: LDK) in its latest announcement involving its slow takeover by a Chinese investor. At the other end of the spectrum, the message from Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) is a more upbeat,...

Dana Blankenhorn The lessons of technology investing also apply to solar investing. The decision by Evergreen Solar (ESLR) to move to China has some analysts saying "ha-ha" over solar energy. But in fact it reveals a basic fallacy in the way solar power, and solar power stocks, are analyzed by Wall Street. It's a manufacturing assumption. Solar panels are said to be a manufacturing business. So if prices are going down, that's bad. If governments are no longer seeing solar as just good PR, if they're treating it as a real industry that has to make...

Doug Young August 9th was “Solar Friday”, as we were bombarded with a flurry of news that showing the sector is rebounding and could also see its first major merger. In the former category, earnings updates from Yingli (NYSE: YGE) and Trina (NYSE: TSL) are showing steady improvement for the embattled panel-making sector, while a quarterly report from Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) is showing the sudden improvements may already be starting to plateau. In the latter category, Chinese media are reporting that both Yingli and Trina are also showing interest in investing in Suntech (NYSE: STP), the former...

Jennifer Runyon It really is all China's fault, say most solar experts, but the Chinese government's motivations aren't necessarily malicious.   Fingering China photo via Bigstock Today is the last day before the International Trade Commission makes its final ruling on the tariffs that will likely be added to solar panels that include cells that were manufactured in China. We'll report on the specifics as soon as we have them but it's a pretty safe bet that there'll be tariffs in the amount of...

by Doug Young Just a day after the solar panel sector was hit by a new negative trade ruling from the US, Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL) gave its investors another unwanted surprise with word that it is preparing to raise more than $200 million through a combination of new stock and bond offerings. Trina joins a growing list of solar panel makers that are looking to western capital markets as confidence returns to the sector following a prolonged downturn dating back to early 2011. The fact that Trina and others are turning to western capital markets to...

Joseph McCabe Many people ask me, “which CIGS company is going to emerge as winner in the race towards high efficiency thin film PV’s? To provide an enlightened perspective to the question, some historical perspectives are needed. First Solar (FSLR) has helped the Thin Film PV Industry by proving that respectable solar to electric area efficiencies can be achieved in a low cost manufacturing processes, with respectable performance over time. First Solar’s technology is cadmium telluride (CdTe) on glass. Previously, amorphous silicon was the thin film leader, with the highest commercially available thin film area efficiencies; currently they...

This article is a continuation of my Ten Alternative Energy Speculations for 2008, with picks #8, 9, and10 published last Thursday.  If you haven't already, please read the introduction to that article before buying any of the stock picks that follow.  These companies are likely to be highly volatile, and large positions are not appropriate for many investors.   My least risky picks are part of that same article linked to above; the moderately risky picks are here.  This article contains the most speculative three picks. #3 Nevada Geothermal Power (OTCBB:NGLPF or Toronto:NGP.V) US$1.29 or CAD$1.26 Geothermal first started catching...

Paula Mints Bumpy Road photo via BigStock To encourage the continuation of necessary incentives as well as utility participation, the PV industry has promised a consistent (and significant) reduction in module prices along with "grid" parity with conventional energy sources. The PV industry has also promised to do this without subsidies and it may have to keep its promises. Conventional energy producers have not promised low energy prices without subsidies and are expected to continue to enjoy  without much negative press  indirect and direct subsidies for...

Doug Young Bottom line: Yingli looks set to receive a government bailout from Beijing. Beijing is telling one of the nation’s biggest policy lenders to provide money for struggling solar panel maker Yingli (NYSE: YGE) before it defaults on a bond payment due next month. Last week Yingli said it was in desperate negotiations with 2 groups of creditors, including one holding 1.4 billion yuan ($220 million) worth of bonds set to mature next month. (previous post) The other group is owed another 1 billion yuan related to an Yingli bond that came due last year,...

Garvin Jabusch The fossil fuel apologists in the U.S. are of course relentless in their criticism of the solar energy industry. Now with the JinkoSolar (JKS) fluoride spill, though, their hypocrisy is on full display. Earlier this month, they started talking about how Solyndra's failure means the whole solar concept is flawed (it's not), and how solar doesn't work (it does) and how it's not competitive (it is). Now, JinkoSolar, having spilled fluoride into a river in Haining province, China, is the new whipping boy. The issue though...

Paul Denholm, a Senior Analyst at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), sees an upcoming struggle between renewable sources of electricity such as photovoltaics (PV) and wind with low-carbon baseload alternatives for space on the low carbon grid of the future.  These baseload alternatives are nuclear and Internal Gasification Combined Cycle coal plants with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (IGCC w/ CCS, refereed to by advocates as "Clean Coal). This may come as a shock to advocates of the idea that Global Warming is such a big problem that we will need all forms of low carbon electricity, because the...

James Montgomery The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has formally decided to levy antidumping duties on imported solar-grade polysilicon from U.S. and Korean suppliers, turning up the heat yet again in the broader trade disputes simmering between several key markets for solar energy. The antidumping tariffs, which are said to be effective starting July 24, range from 54-57 percent targeting nine U.S. suppliers and from 2-49 percent for 11 South Korean suppliers. (Here's a roughly Googlized translation of the China MOC announcement.) Here's how the antidumping tariffs lay out: Not included in these polysilicon tariffs is any mention of European...