2012
February 18, 2012
China continues to rule the global wind energy market generating around 40% of the global demand in 2011 with 18 GW of wind turbine installations. The dominance of the Chinese is underlined from the fact that they installed 3 times more wind energy than USA which is a bigger electricity market. China also dominates in supplying wind equipment to the global market. Its companies like Sinovel, Mingyang and Goldwind are starting to win marketshare in overseas market .These companies which are trying to grow outside to escape the glut in the domestic market have won some major overseas orders.
February 16, 2012
Wind Energy is the largest renewable energy source in the globe right now (if you don't count in hydro and nuclear energy). The total installed wind energy capacity exceeds the solar and biomass capacity by quite a margin at over 200 GW . The recent surge in wind energy installations has been from China which put up almost 40-50% of the global wind turbine installations in 2010 and 2011. Now China has surpassed every other country to become the largest wind energy country in the world with over 60 GW. While Europe earlier led by Spain, Denamark and Germany used to lead in wind capacity, they have been comprehensively overtaken by the Middle Kingdom in the last couple of years. USA comes in next but still far below its potential while the rest of the world has started to pick up now. India is the 5th largest country and has been steadily putting up around 2-3 GW of wind capacity each year.
February 16, 2012
While US Solar Installers are making Hay while the Chinese Solar Panel Companies flood the world with super cheap solar modules,Western solar manufacturers are being killed at an astounding rate.The second biggest thin film solar panel company in the US United Solar Ovonic has gone belly up.The company was fighting a losing batter as the more efficient crystalline solar panel prices went below its production cost.The company had tried to fight in a the niche of BIPV solar panel market but could not survice. After First Solar,Energy Conversion Devices seemed the mostly likely viable company in Thin Film Technology.After a few quarters of profits in 2008,the company went into the red as its flexible a-Si modules failed to cut costs as fast as others.It has been shutting factories in the US and shifting to low cost locations.
February 16, 2012
While there is massive outrage amongst some politicians against the giveaways to support renewable energy, there is very little discussions on the massive subsidies given to the fossil fuel sector. Note globally more than half a trillion dollars is given away to support fossil fuels which is already a mature competitive sector. Green Energy which is a developing industry has got compete with not only the established 100 year infrastructure of fossil fuels but also against these massive $600 billion. However propagandist's and ignorant sections of the media protest against the support given to the cleantech industry.Here is some bad and shallow journalism on German Solar subsidies
February 15, 2012
India's Energy Storage Market is seeing strong action from foreign MNCs looking to grab a piece of this fast growing market. India's Electricity Situation is quite bad with huge deficits and problems across the whole supply chain starting from fuel to the end distribution. A Huge Segment of the Population has to depend on privately generated power to meet their energy needs. Storage of power becomes essential for places where power goes off for 8-10 hours a day. Using Lead Acid Batteries is the only cheap option in these cases as running a diesel genset my not be convenient for a home. UPS companies have been doing great business in the country for a long time and will continue to do so.
February 14, 2012
Solarcity which is the largest US Solar Installer has got sued by Sunpower for stealing trade secrets. Note Sunpower which was recently bought by French Oil Giant Total is facing tough times. Sunpower which makes the most efficient solar panels in the world is facing tough competition from super cheap Chinese solar panels. In fact according to Total CEO the company would have been already bankrupt with Total support. Beside making solar panels, Sunpower is also one of the biggest solar integrators and developers. The company has been in the business of installing solar panels after it acquired solar system installer Powerlight.
February 14, 2012
The US Import Sanctions on Chinese Solar Panel imports will become a non-event soon as Chinese solar panel producers are easily short circuting the sanctions. They are using a number of strategies to protect themselves from the upcoming duties and anti-dumping measures. This shows that globalization makes the use of specific duties on a nation quite useless and only benefits the lawyers . The reason is that private companies are much more faster and nimble compared to the slow moving bureaucrats .
February 14, 2012
Solar Prices have now reached grid parity in various places in the world without a lot of people realizing it. In countries like Brazil and Italy, Solar Energy Electricity price is already lower than the Retail Price of Electricity. So it is on most islands in the world like i,Caribbean and elsewhere. These islands which are mostly powered by dirty diesel generators are seeing rapid deployments of solar power. In fact Hawaii is already getting saturated with solar . However the Achilles heed of Solar Energy that is the lack of continuous power is starting to bite.
February 14, 2012
The relentless rise of Chinese telecom equipment and OEM companies has massacared telecom jobs in the West with major companies like Nokia, Alcatel and others firing in the thousands. Note Huawei and ZTE have become the nemisis of the telecom equipment makers which are showing losses in the last few years. These companies are not managing to compete with the low cost engineer advantage of the Chinese firms . Nokia is also firing thousands in its western factories in Poland and other places as it moves production to Asian factories. Note while Nokia has become unprofitable to other causes like Apple and Android, low cost phones from Asia is the biggest factor in its demise as well.
February 13, 2012
Now Car Bombs have been used against Israel's Diplomatic Personnel in Georgia and India. While the bomb in Geogia was diffused by the action of alert guards in Tbilsi, the one in India went off. Note India is a very susceptible country when it comes to terrorist attacks. The Bombay blasts when a number of Israelis were killed took place only 2-3 years ago. Now again an Innova SUV from Toyota was targeted in one of the most secure areas of India's capital Delhi. Note this attack could have been done by numerous organizations like Al-Qaeda, Pakistan based terrorist groups or even some of the Iran sympathetic groups.
February 13, 2012
However it has now thankfully put its plan on hold of spending another 520 million euros on solar energy. The company has already wrote down $1 billion in solar after the valuations of Ersol and Aleo have crashed from the time it bought it. Note most Western solar companies are going bankrupt as they can't compete with the 80c/watt solar panel prices. Stalwarts Q-Cells are defaulting on the debt payments while according to Total CEO, Sunpower would have been bankrupt if they had not bought it. Even the biggest US Solar Panel Company First Solar has been ravaged by the price war. Bosch has bravely said that it would continue to remain in the solar panel market while it makes more sense for them now to make an exit and concentrate on their core competencies. It can realistically never hope to get into the top 20 solar panel suppliers and stop spending good money after the bad.
February 10, 2012
However Solar Thermal Technology is finding a niche in Hybrid Fossil Fuel Power Plants . The reason that Solar Thermal is gaining traction in Solar Hybrid Plants is
1) They can use the existing Electricity and Transmission Infrastructure of the new Fossil Fuel Plant or the Existing One
2) Solar Thermal Technology in most cases generate Steam which can be used by the Turbines of the Fossil Fuel Plant saving additional costs
February 9, 2012
US Coal Companies are being forced to close coal mines and reduce production because of a massive glut of cheap natural gas and emission standards . Note Coal Disadvantages are much more than that of other fossil fuels making it the dirtiest form of energy. While India and China face massive coal shortages , USA on the other hand faces a glut . Coal has been coming under increasing attact in the West with few new thermal plants being opened and many closed due to tougher pollution standards. Note Clean Coal Technolgies and CCS is being promoted to prolong the use of Coal but they are not getting much traction.
February 8, 2012
California which has the largest number of solar installations in the USA and is the capital of solar energy in North America is seeing a rapid exit of solar panel manufacturers. First it was Solarworld which closed a solar module manufacturing facility. Now Sanyo Solar Panels will stopped being made in the state as well as Panasonic consolidates manufacturing in Asia. Note cheap Chinese solar panels have made western manufacturers exit the solar industry and their have been a number of media grabbing bankruptcies as well. Western solar companies as well as Japanese solar panel makers have been shutting down in droves now .
February 7, 2012
USA has the largest amount of spent nuclear waste in the world and it does not have a single permanent nuclear waste storage site. It is quite shocking that thousands of tons of dangerous nuclear waste is put in temporary locations waiting to start a new disaster in the Fukushima pattern. Note the greatest danger and fallout from the recent nuclear disaster was due to spent nuclear rods . The first site that was being prepared in Yucata mountains is mired in controversy despite millions of dollars being spent.
February 7, 2012
Global Stock Brokers across continents are either firing hundreds of workers or are totally closing down. The reasons for this downsizing of operations by brokerages is
a) The Financial Industry has become too large to the size of the global economy particuarly in countries like USA
b) The reduction in risk and capital means that big financial companies are reducing and selling their operations
c) The Broking Sector has seen a Peak in 2008 and now the only place to go for the next few years is Down
February 7, 2012
Japanese Conglomerates like Sharp, Panasonic, Mitsubishi used to be the undisputed colusseses of 1980s when they could do no wrong. These Japanese giants which were grown under the care of the Japanese government department METI have operations in hundreds of countries and revenues in the hundreds of billions. However for the past few years they have not been able to earn decent profits. And last year in 2011 they have mounted massive losses. Panasonic is going to lose an astounding $10 billion this year while others like Sony, Sharp and other will do equally badly. While some factors are temporary like
February 7, 2012
It is not widely known that ,Honda is a manufacturers of CIGs thin film solar panels alongwith the likes of TMSC, Solar Frontier and others. Honda has been in the solar panel manufacturing business of the last 3-4 years though its capacity remains small and its panels not very efficient. Like many conglomerates , Honda too entered the solar industry during the boom times and now would be finding the going hard . Note a number of Japanese solar companies have existed the business like Sumco and others. However Honda which remains a very marginal player in the global solar business is not going away . Instead it is using its solar panels to power its own dealerships and auto plants.
February 7, 2012
Chinese Legal System is mostly a joke with the communist party running the world's most populated country with an iron hand. The courts are mostly for show as dissidence against the Party is not tolerated and human rights are non-existent.Also most of the major companies are run under crony capital rules rather than free markets. Most of the rulings are done which favor the ruling party mandarins with little respect to whatever Communist Party laws are. IP Theft has been a big problem for overseas companies operating in China with Google existing the country sometime ago after it was hacked. With the world's largest Internet companies having to run because of IP theft, smaller companies have no chance.Sinovel is the biggest wind company in the world right now because of Chinese government support and policies. It commands huge influence in the corridors of power as it is unlikely to have become this big without major government and bank support.
February 6, 2012
China which is home to the biggest solar industry in the world and most of the top solar panel manufacturers has decided to lower subsidy in 2012. Note China did not pass a Feed in Tariff Law for a long time as prices of solar energy remained high. But after a massive crash in solar prices and energy in 2011 it passed a FIT law in late 2011 to take advantage. This resulted in a big jump resulting in China becoming one of the top 5 markets in 2011 . Now China is set to become one of the top 3 markets in 2012 if not the biggest . This is due to the fact that other European solar panel markets are rapidly reducing subsidies and China needs to support its solar companies many of which are effectively insolvent like LDK.
February 5, 2012
Japanese Companies which were the leading solar companies in 2006 have steadily lost the top global rankings to Chinese companies. Now many of the top Japanese Solar Energy Companies are retreating from markets and manufacturing. Sharp which was the largest solar company in 2009 and 2010 has radically restructured its strategy but is still losing marketshare. Panasonic the second biggest solar company has closed down its Japanese factory. Other Japanese solar companies like Mitsubishi, Kyocera are also being forced to rethink solar panel manufacturing.
Note most of the higher cost producers in the solar industry are effectively bankrupt and are only being supported by government or big parents. Many Western companies have already closed or are on the verge of closing. Some of the bankrupt companies are not finding buyers of their equipment even at 10c/dollar. Massive overcapacity remains in the solar industry particularly in China which is not being taken out fast enough which will probably lead to another bad year for solar stocks in 2012.
February 4, 2012
The Indian Mutual Fund and Asset Management Companies are facing tough times and foreign asset managers are exiting in droves. Fidelity has put up its $2 billion of funds on the auction block trying to find a buyer as it exists India. This is only after a couple of months when Blackstone another of the trillion dollar asset managers existed the Indian business. In 2008 during the boom times, every Tom Dick and Harry of the asset management business wanted to get a piece of the Indian pie. The local brokerages were commanding super high valuations while growth and profits seemed endless.
February 4, 2012
We would like to incorporate BIPV solar tiles or roofing when we build - so we are trying to find out a this point what products are now available in Australia and what our choices would be and the range of prices each would be in ...just to give us a starting point as we begin to pull all the ideas together ?
We'd really appreciate any information you can send our way that would help us achieving this - the brand/type of BIVP we can use, the best inverter and battery you'd recommend - obviously it will depend on where we are and how much sun our roof will get - but we plan to make it as much as is possible as we'd like to be able create 100% of our power needs or if not at least 80 % . At present as a guide my household uses approx 10.7 khw of power a day - so that will give you an idea of how many solar tiles we'd need perhaps ...if the sun was at its optimum ? We hope to be building on a reasonably sunny block between Ferntree Gully and Belgrave on the high side near bushland ...beginning in a couple of months or so
February 3, 2012
China India Trade has been rising at very high growth rates over the last few years driven by the booming GDP growth in the fastest growing economies of the world. However India like other countries faces the mounting problem of a huge trade deficit with China which is growing all the time. Like Brazil ,USA this has become a major problem . Beside the official reported figures , there is a large clandestine trade takes place outside the normal channels. Massive imports from China go unreported to avoid excise duties and custom taxes. Both countries have corrupt officials and businessmen which facilitate trade without paying of taxes and duties. Unofficial Trade Deficit with China may be double the $27 billion reported in 2011.
February 2, 2012
Apple recently reported astounding financial results in which profits grew by an awe inspiring 50% on a huge basis with Net Profits Margin of 30% which is crazy for a company of Apple's size. It generates massive cash flows and has over $100 billion in its cash war chest. While there are a number of reasons which makes Apple one of the most successful and profitable companies in world history, the global oversupply of labor is one of the chief reasons which is overlooked at .
February 1, 2012
India is a country with one of the biggest population of poor people living hand to mouth. But becoming super rich in this country is not rocket science. All you have to do is become a political crony and start counting your millions if not billions. Corruption in India is quite rampant and blatant which has been proved time and again with scam a day. Politicians and Businessmen have been jailed but they have managed to get out on bail using their millionaire lawyers to fake illness and other shenanigans. Some politicians are now involved in both professions with some rumored to be billionaires owning companies through surreptitious means and parking their money in Swiss banks. Business Groups in India see their shares rising and going down depending on which political party wins proving the nexus between politicians and businessmen. There has been no reforms to separate these two and now powerful politico-business dynasties have started ruling large parts of India.
February 1, 2012
I continue to be surprised by the bad and shallow analysis of renewable energy subsidies done by media. Most of it is due to bad research and lack of investigative and unbiased journalism. Writers with little or no background in energy or cleantech sensationalize an issue taking a report from some biased thinktank. Here is one example from a website called ironically Reason.com which you can read here http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/31/black-hole-sun-germany-spends-100-billio
February 1, 2012
In these days of economic crises it has become unsexy to talk about Global Warming and Climate Change which pose a much greater threat to mankind. The Western countries have turned apathetic towards climate change with most like Canada, USA and UK showing shocking attitude towards Global Warming . The reason is that rich countries can throw resources at ameliorating the affects of climate change . The poor countries have little in terms of resources to either slowdown climate change or change the attitude of the richer countries. South Asia and Africa two of the poorest regions in the world will face the worst of the global warming affects. A new study has indicated that India's wheat yield could be halved to 40 million tons a year from the current 80 million tons due to rising temperature. The reason is that wheat yields will come down as temperature goes up by 2 degrees centigrade or more.