World Economy and Markets
July 5, 2012
China Solar and Wind China’s renewable (solar & wind) manufacturing industry has generated a massive global oversupplying leading to a price crash in solar panels and […]
July 4, 2012
The DRAM Industry has seen a long and painful consolidation with many players going bankrupt and others being gobbled up by bigger companies. Many companies left […]
July 3, 2012
German Solar Companies Are being pushed out of the solar market they developed by the ruthless assault of Chinese solar panel companies. Already stalwarts of the […]
July 3, 2012
Japanese Government Gave the go ahead in restarting the nuclear power plants in the country after all the nuclear reactors were shut down post the Fukushima […]
June 30, 2012
Solar Panels have become massively oversupplied globally with companies in the boom years of 2010 and 2011 installing record amount of solar equipment. It is estimated […]
June 29, 2012
Japan after the Fukushima disaster had set out on a plan to increase the share of renewable energy in the electricity mix which is abysmally low. […]
June 27, 2012
Chinese Scenario Big Chinese state owned companies are gobbling up financially strained Western solar firms as a massive overcapacity in global solar panel supply (caused by […]
June 27, 2012
Astronergy was founded in 2006 and is the solar subsidiary of the Chint Group. As a leading integrated solar manufacturer, Astronergy specializes in research, development & […]
June 26, 2012
Talesun is an international manufacturer of solar cells and modules with offices in Munich, San Jose and Shanghai. The photovoltaic solar cells and modules are manufactured in China […]
June 25, 2012
The Polysilicon Companies have seen an amazing amount of profits in the period between 2008-2011 end as prices of polysilicon shot up to $400/kg which resulted […]
June 21, 2012
Updated: 7/06/2016 Japanese Solar Panel companies Sharp, Kyocera, Panasonic-Sanyo, Mitsubishi were the top solar panel producers in the world. Solar Energy in Japan has a long […]
June 20, 2012
State Owned Chinese conglomerates strengthen their position in solar industry during industry crisis
While thousands of small solar companies in the world have gone / are going bust on account of massive industry oversupply and crashed solar panel prices, […]
June 16, 2012
The LED chip industry flourished in China as the government provided capital subsidy to small companies to buy MOCVD tools which help in making these chips. […]
June 14, 2012
About the Company Schuco is a leading developer of comprehensive systems for solar power and solar heating. It is the market leader for innovative & energy-efficient […]
June 13, 2012
Updated on: 8/06/2016 About Yingli Green Energy Yingli Green Energy is one of the oldest Chinese companies and is completely integrated from polysilicon. Currently Yingli is […]
June 5, 2012
The US imposition of duties on Solar panel imports from China has raised the hackles of the Chinese Government which considers the solar industry to be […]
June 1, 2012
The US imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on China made solar cells has brought out unintended beneficiaries and losers. I had explained in an earlier […]
May 30, 2012
The New Normal which marked low to negative economic growth,high unemployment in developed countries of the West began after the Lehman Crash in 2008. It has […]
May 25, 2012
Structural Unemployment has become a big problem in developed countries where middle class jobs are being permanently destroyed. The advent of modern communications and technology has […]
May 14, 2012
Globalization refers to the increase in international trade & commerce amongst the different countries, through the reduction of geographic barriers. With the rapid innovation of smart […]
February 29, 2012
China's solar panel companies can used their government banks backing as a major competitive advantage. Just like their telecom equipment companies ZTE and Huawei they can use the debt to win contracts over suppliers from India and elsewhere. Note there is a already a major controversy in the USA over the subsidies and support given to Chinese solar companies and has led to a so called solar trade war between the two . Even USA has used its EXIM Bank to provides millions of dollars in financing of solar farms which are supplied by US Solar Panel producers First Solar. Chinese companies Goldpoly are using the strong billion dollar lines to build solar projects in the Europe as well
February 23, 2012
Critics have claimed that Germany has spent $130 billion in solar subsidies to provide only 0.3% of its electricity. This is a shallow and ignorant argument at its worst. The critics from all over the world cite figures and statistics without going into the deeper implications. Germany has in the last 5 years made solar energy reach the poorest people in the world . The country's subsideis have made large solar companies lower costs and improve technology at a rapid pace to keep up with the lowered subsidies. Solar Panels which were sold for $4/watt in 2008 are solar for 80c/watt now. A truly remarkable story in Energy which has been missed the the fossil fuel funded hacks in media. For the last few centuries man has been trying to harness solar energy at reasonable costs but has failed to make a big impression. Germany in the last 5 years has made a huge and lasting impact as solar energy will go from strenght to strenght ..
February 23, 2012
China which is the world's largest provider of solar panels made from crystalline silicon is seeing a large number of smaller polysilicon companies go bankrupt or stop production. The reason is that for many of the smaller companies the price of polysilicon is $25-30/kg while the costs are $40-50/kg .This means that the smaller companies are making massive losses with the production of each kg of polysilicon. Note Polysilicon is a commodity industry like the memory industry and goes through periodic ups and downs when prices can go much below costs. In recent years a large number of companies set up polysilicon plants to benefit from the massive growth in the solar panel demand in Europe. However a massive glut in 2011 led the prices to fall across the supply chain of silicon solar panels. Poly prices fell from a high of $100/kg to $25/kg a drop of almost 75% in one year. This has made many of the smaller poly plants in China stop production as the price is below variable costs. The bigger producers like GCL , Renesola and Daqo have lower costs at around $25-30/kg which means they are breaking even . However for smaller companies the situation is dire as massive capacity expansion by the top polysilicon producers will continue in 2012 keeping prices at around the same level.
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
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 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 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
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.