Solar Photovoltaic

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...

Tom Konrad CFA Dilemma Compass photo via Bigstock Contrary to some confused bloggers, solar panels produce the most electricity over the course of a year when pointed south, not west. A recent report from the Pecan Street Research Institute started a chain of articles with increasingly inaccurate conclusions. The lemmings at Quartz, Gizmodo, and Grist, followed each other off the cliff of delusion saying that homeowners could produce more power by pointing their solar panels west, rather than south.  (UPDATE: Now even USA Today is jumping off.)  The title of...

Jennifer Runyon In part one of this article, we talked with a-Si equipment manufacturer, Oerlikon Solar, which was recently purchased by Tokyo Electric.  Here in part two, we talk with two heavy-hitters in the thin-film solar industry to hear their thoughts about the future of thin-film PV and the future of their technologies.  First Solar (FSLR)– Maker of Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) Thin-film; Developer of Utility-Scale Projects First Solar (FSLR) has robust plans for the future, according to David Erhart, Marketing Communications Manager at the company. Erhart explained that it is First Solar’s “thin-film technology that takes a simple...

Doug Young Trade War. photo via Bigstock It’s been interesting to watch all the different interpretations coming out of a brief flurry of talks in Europe late last week aimed at settling a trade dispute between the EU and China over Beijing’s support for its solar panel makers. About the only thing that everyone agrees on is that some talks did happen, and that China took the interesting step of letting an industry association rather than government officials handle its side of the negotiations. But after that, no...

by Debra Fiakas CFA The last post “SolarCity's Investor Disconnect” visited the oft repeated flogging of a company missing consensus estimates.  SolarCity (SCTY:  Nasdaq) reported strong sales growth in the December 2012 quarter, but the net loss was far deeper than expected  -  at least as suggested by published consensus estimates.  Investors immediately held the company accountable for the miss.  A closer look at the consensus reveals it is there is a great deal of disagreement on SolarCity’s fortunes. We can debate whether a company should be measured against a shakey consensus...

Doug Young Bottom line: A new wave of overseas investment by Chinese solar panel makers should ease western complaints of unfair state-support and provide a more solid foundation for the sector’s longer-term development. Solar panel makers migrate overseas As a settlement to avoid anti-dumping tariffs for Chinese solar panels exported to Europe showed signs of unraveling last week, a new report emerged that showed a more positive trend for a sector that has become the subject of nonstop trade wars over the last 4 years. That newer trend has seen...

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...

Doug Young  Bottom line: Yingli is likely to get sold or announce a major government-led restructuring, which could include bankruptcy, before a new round of 1.4 billion yuan in bonds comes due next month. In what looks like a case of deja vu, fast-shrinking solar panel maker Yingli (NYSE: YGE) is in the headlines again as it looks set to default on 1.4 billion yuan ($220 million) worth of bonds set to come due next month. The default would be Yingli’s second within a year, after it failed to pay off part of another big bond that matured last...

Doug Young The inevitable has finally happened at tanking former solar star Suntech (NYSE: STP), which has been forced into bankruptcy ending a months-long battle between the company's founder Shi Zhengrong and just about all the company's other stakeholders. In the meantime, I would be remiss not to mention another solar news tidbit that has panel maker Yingli (NYSE: YGE) forming a new strategic tie-up with GLC-Poly Energy (HKEx: 3800), in what could eventually become the first mega-merger in the struggling solar panel sector. Let's start with Suntech, which has been in the headlines nearly non-stop these...

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...

Tom Konrad, CFA Prospective investors in solar manufacturers should consider the competitive forces that constrain the industry's long-term profitability. In the first part of this series, I showed how a competitive analysis of the corn ethanol industry in early 2007 illuminated the forces that soon caused ethanol company stock prices to collapse in late 2007.  I also implied that the solar cell manufacturers, including industry leaders such as Sunpower (SPWRA) and First Solar (FSLR) are vulnerable to these forces and may not be able to maintain high returns on capital over the long term. I'm not...

by Billy Parish Five years after the Great Recession, most Americans have yet to regain their faith in our country’s largest financial institutions. The Dow is up, but the latest Financial Trust Index shows that 58% of Americans expect the stock market to drop 30% or more this year. Meanwhile, a recent Harris Poll noted that only seven percent of the public trusts the leaders of Wall Street. Strangely, the same poll which found that most Americans think stock prices will decline also found that 92% of Americans plan to hold or increase their investments in the stock...

by Shawn Kravetz In the second quarter, solar stocks were impacted by broad energy sector declines on global macroeconomic concerns (most notably Greece and China). This negative sentiment has continued unabated into July exacerbating the disconnect between fundamentals and perceptions. JA Solar (NYSE: JASO) epitomizes this dislocation. We at Esplanade Capital Electron Partners (ECEP) owned JA Solar prior to June 5, believing the company to be worth ~30%+ more than the share price. On June 5, JA Solar received a takeover offer from its Chairman/CEO and parent company at a 20% premium....

The 2014 rankings for solar module suppliers have been released from the newly combined Solarbuzz and IHS Technology solar research team. The team predicts that the global top 10 PV module suppliers will stay the same, although some reshuffling will occur. The rankings are based on full year shipment estimates. The group is forecasting Trina Solar (TSL) to be the largest module supplier in 2014 in terms of global shipments. IHS said that Trina is expected to break industry records for both quarterly and annual PV module shipments in Q4’14. Yingli Green Energy (YGE), the holder of these...

by Shawn Kravetz, Esplanade Capital What happened to solar industry fundamentals in 2016? Global demand shattered records growing ~40% to ~80 GW The U.S. grew ~75% to ~14 GW with solar accounting for 40-50% of new generation capacity in 2016 (vs. close to 0% in 2004 when Esplanade started investing in solar.) China installed 34 GW, a massive but volatile figure with record H1 installations giving way to an air pocket in the third quarter followed by a fourth quarter rebound Solar now competes against natural gas, coal, and other wholesale electricity sources not...

Doug Young Struggling solar cell maker Suntech (NYSE: STP) has just issued a euphemistically upbeat plan on how it intends to "solidify market leadership," as it tries to return to health amid a prolonged industry downturn that has seen prices plunge more than 70 percent over the last 2 years. But investors are clearly focused on the last part of the plan, specifically discussing how the company intends to deal with nearly $600 million in convertible bonds that will come due in March next year. The process of renegotiating that debt is likely to be a long one,...