Solar Photovoltaic

by Clean Energy Intel TAN v STP, YGE and TSL Source: Barchart The chart above tells a particularly interesting story. Back in November of 2011, having been bearish on solar for some months, we argued that the market was finally beginning to see a process of rebalancing in the solar sector. A key component of this of course related to a number of announcements from Chinese solar players that they would bring a halt to new plans to expand capacity - at least until the end of 2012. This factor,...

by Paula Mints Outsourcing has been a common practice in the photovoltaic industry since…always. Ignoring it in favor of reporting higher shipment numbers has been a common practice since…always. There is more outsourcing now than there was ten years ago because the industry is bigger. When the PV industry was at megawatt levels, outsourcing was at megawatt levels. Now that the industry is at gigawatt levels, outsourcing is at gigawatt levels. Today’s outsourcing is also more acceptable in the past everyone did it quietly, today it is out in the open. Yet despite this openness and acceptability,...

Timminco (TIMNF.PK or TIM.TO) was, without a doubt, one of the great solar plays of 2007. The Toronto-based company, which has yet to turn a profit, claims it has come up with a process to produce solar-grade metallurgical silicon with cell efficiencies of about 14%. Metallurgical silicon allows for important energy cost savings in the production process (~70%), so being able to approach cell efficiencies reached by conventional solar-grade silicon processes could mean an important cost advantage for metallurgical silicon producers when measured on a per watt basis. Eventually, certain people began publicly doubting Timminco's...

Liz Nelson The largest thin-film panel manufacturer in the world has an optimistic view of the immediate future for renewable energy demands. First Solar (FSLR) had an impressive charge for several years until the final quarter of 2008 when the stock value of the photovoltaic manufacturer began to plummet. Over the course of four years, the stock had dropped from approximately $311 per share to a dismal $11.43 nearing the end of the second quarter in 2012. At the beginning of April of 2013, the stock had nearly tripled in value and continues to gain momentum. The beginning of...

By Jeff Siegel The road into the digital age has been paved with innovation. Everyday items have been electrified with panels and displays for endless possibilities of interaction. Automobile windscreens, household appliances, even walls and furniture are lighting up all around us, wired with sensors and displays that receive and transmit information. It seems the only surface left to electrify on this road to an everything-digital future is the roadway itself. Some folks believe one day soon, your local road network could be carrying not only the flow of vehicle traffic, but torrential flows of digital data and...

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...

by Paula Mints Buckle up, another module price war is afoot – or maybe it’s dumping or maybe it’s panicked selling or maybe it is the result of overcapacity and softening demand or maybe it is China’s government saying NO MORE to it’s out of control market and effectively stranding a whole lot of overcapacity or maybe it is all of the aforementioned. Pricing is always a complex subject. The average price for modules from China is currently $0.60/Wp (and dropping) and the average price for smaller buyers is $0.66/Wp (and dropping). These are averages and...

By Jeff Siegel Good news for solar investors … Another solar financing/installation company is about to go public. And if history serves as any indicator, this could be yet another opportunity to land some pretty solid gains. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Sunrun, Inc. is set work with banks including Credit Suisse Group AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on an IPO. No final price has be set at this time, but currently the company is valued at more than $1.3 billion, which puts it roughly in the same box with Vivint Solar (NYSE: VSLR). The fastest...

Analyzing Solar Stocks With False Assumptions Dana Blankenhorn When most people think of solar energy, they see flat panels on a roof. They don't think about thin film. They don't see it. This is one of the many advantages of CIGS  and other thin film solar technologies. So what if its efficiency is half that of a panel? It conforms to the shape of the place where it lays. Thin film can also be productized in ways no panel can. It can be turned into something retailers can sell or bloggers will...

by Clean Energy Intel Following the announcement that CIGS solar start-up Solyndra had declared Chapter 11, I published an article suggesting that although this was clearly not good news, the overall solar sector in the US was still in relatively good competitive shape, with a healthy trade surplus with the rest of the world of some $1.9bn. You can read my original article here. Although competition from China is intense, particularly in low-cost module production, the US remains a strong player across the supply chain as a whole - particularly in polysilicon production and the manufacture of the...

by Joseph McCabe, PE When investing in the solar industry always remember the old joke: Question: Do you know how to make a small fortune in solar? Answer: Start with a large one. There are exceptions to this rule, like when PowerLight was purchased by SunPower the PowerLight principles came away with valuable SPWRA stock options. Powerlight was a structural balance of systems (BOS) company. They had unique rooftop and single axis tracking structural technologies for photovoltaics (PV), and used that IP to win jobs with various PV module manufacturers, the lowest priced ones at any given time. ...

By Jeff Siegel While solar bears and short-mongers celebrated the 8% dip in SolarCity (NASDAQ:SCTY) yesterday, opportunists are sniffing around for another buying opportunity. Especially those who didn't take my advice to load up after the stock fell below $50 back in March. What a bargain that was! In any event, SCTY took it on the chin yesterday, and I suspect there will continue to be some ebbs and flows in the near-term. Long-term, however, SCTY remains a solid play on the growth of solar in the United States. It's also worth noting that SCTY has just unveiled a...

by Joseph McCabe, PE Solar manufacturers are racing to build the next cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV) factory in the United States. Three major CdTe on glass factories in the US have been recently announced each with a unique starting point. Abound Solar has won a US DOE loan to support a new 640 MW/yr facility in Tipton, Indiana. General Electric (GE) recently announced buying Primestar. They indicate that they will be building the largest PV manufacturing facility in the world. Finally First Solar has announced a 250 MW/yr facility to be built in Mesa City Arizona near...

by Paula Mints In 2012 SolarWorld, facing significant price and margin pressure from cells/modules imported from China, filed trade petitions in Europe and the US under section 337 of the 1930 Trade Act. As a refresher on the Trade Act of 1930; this was the infamous Smoot-Hawley Act which began as a protection for farmers but after much debate fed by many special interests it was eventually attached to a wide variety of imports (~900). Other countries retaliated with their own tariffs. The US trade deficit ballooned. Smoot-Hawley did not push the world into the Great Depression...

Doug Young The latest signs coming from bankrupt solar panel maker Suntech (NYSE: STP) indicate a Beijing-led overhaul for the struggling sector may not be coming after all, and that local governments and other stakeholders may instead become the main rescue agents for these companies. Reports last year had hinted that Beijing was working on a broad plan to retrench the sector, which was suffering from massive overcapacity. But since then most of the problems at the weakest major player LDK (NYSE: LDK), have been handled by the local government and other stakeholders in its home province of...