Chinese
May 10, 2011
JSW Energy has set up JSW Green Energy a 100% subsidiary to enter the renewable energy in India.Not while Wind Power in India is already a huge industry with more than $3 billion in annual investment,Solar Power in India is set to eclipse this soon.JSW Green Energy is looking to set up solar power plants and solar rooftops in the country.For this it has ordered 500 KW of CIGs solar panels from embattled American Thin Film company Energy Conversion Devices.Note ENER is already under huge pressure as it fails to compete with low cost Chinese players.ENER which markets its BIPV Solar Panels under the United Solar brand sells mostly in France and Italy which have higher subsidies for BIPV Panels.Like other American companies ECD has significantly ramped down and moved Green Jobs to Mexico in order to suriveNote CIGs Panels are of lower efficiency than the normal mainstream crystalline solar panels.ENER Solar Panels are mostly used in BIPV and BAPV applications since they are not as cost effective and efficient as normal solar panels.Thin Film in India is rapidly increasing penetration with the Thin Film Leader First Solar targeting 100 MW of Solar Panels in 2010 itself which would make it the biggest solar panel supplier in India.
May 10, 2011
Solar Power in India is set to be one of the biggest energy industries in the 21st century due to a unique set of favorable converging factors with declining cost the biggest one.The Indian government has recognized this fact and set a 20 GW of solar energy capacity target by 2022 and Indian states are boosting solar energy too through their own set of subsidies and solar supportive policies as well.However a number of problems have cropped up in the initial phases as solar electricity price is still high at Rs 14-16 unit compared to the retail electricity price of around Rs 4-5/unit.Though solar subsidies by the government should provide support till the prices come down.Major Indian solar companies like Moser Baer,Lanco are predicting that the solar electricity costs will fall by 40% or more in the next 3-5 years as technology improves,scale increases and more of the components like glass,solar inverters are manufactured domestically substituting expensive imports from countries like China and Taiwan.
May 2, 2011
Solar Panels have grown exponentially in the last few years driven by declining costs and growing energy prices.The advent of the low cost manufacturers of silicon solar panels from China,falling raw material polysilicon costs,subsidies from governements fighting climate change have all contributed to the more than 150% increase in world solar demand in 2010.Solar Panels are not only being used on roofs and giant rooftop ground plants,but also are being integrated in buildings known as BIPV applications.Solar Panels are also available in flexible forms which can be used in backpacks and other innovative ways.Now there is another niche for solar panels that is growing.Note most of these companies are using the Concentrated Photovoltaic Technology (CPV).The traditional CPV suffers from heating problems as high concentration of sun power leads to high temperature.Building the CPV systems on water will help them solve their problems according to these companies.
May 1, 2011
Note Big Oil and Gas has been slowly been retrenching form the solar energy industry despite initial leadership.Shell which was one of the biggest solar players has become almost non-existent while BP has shut down a number of solar factories outsourcing production to China.Other Oil and Gas companies like Exxon,Valero,Chevron and others have concentrated their energies on related green sectors like algae based biofuels rather than on solar and wind energy.So the move by Total comes as a surprise as it acquires one of the top 15 solar panel companies in the world.Sunpower is being acquired at a cheap price considering its world beating solar cell technology and its massive systems business which has gigawatts of solar projects under development.Note Sunpower makes the highest efficiency solar panels on a commercial scale and recently tied up with AUO.It is the 2nd biggest solar plant installer in the US and has a massive presence in the commercial and government sector.Total said it looked at over 200 companies before buying Sunpower.Note M&A has been strong in the Solar Thermal Industry and has now started picking up in the Solar PV Industry as well.With solar company valuations at a historic low,it makes sense for the larger chemical and energy companies to pick up good companies on the cheap.
April 25, 2011
China has recently put increased scrutiny and control over the mining,smelting and export of important minerals like tungsten and rare earth oxides.Note mining in China often takes place illegaly without any regard to environment in quest for a quick buck.Japan which is the largest importer of rare earth oxides from China gets most of its demand met through illegal mining.However China has cracked down on this practise as it regards these minerals like tungsten,iron,rare earth,antimony and molybdenum as important for national goals.China has severely curtailed the exports of rare earth exports leading to a sharp rise in rare earth prices and stocks of rare earth companies.This has sparked concern in developed countries and blocks like EU,Japan and USA which has taken the case to the WTO.
April 17, 2011
A lot of confusion exists about solar cells efficiency about which technology results in how much efficiency and the difference between solar cells and the solar panels efficiency.Note the biggest differentiator of a solar cell besides its cost is its efficiency.Not only do different materials give different efficiencies,even different companies have conversion efficiencies which differ for the same technology.Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency also depends on the purity of the solar wafer which is used as raw material to print solar cells besides whether it is monocrystalline or multicrystalline solar cells.With most of the low lying fruit already gathered in respect to lowering cost of the silicon solar cells,most of the big Chinese solar companies are concentrating their efforts in improving the efficiency in order to cut down costs in the cutthroat solar industry where the stars of yesterday are fighting to stay alive (Energy Conversion Devices,Evergreen Solar).This rising tide of the solar industry in 2010 has not been able to revive the fortune of some companies though European companies have made enough to fight another day.Solar Cells Efficiencies also differ in the champion cells tested in labs like NREL and on commercial lines.But here is a general range of efficiency of different types of solar cells made from different technologies
Solar Cell Efficiency Improvement is the best way to reduce the costs of solar power and reach grid parity in most places in the world.Solar Cell Efficiencies have improved continuously and with a number of companies and startups investing billions of dollars in research,it will keep improving.However cost considerations are an important factor as well and the technology which balances the two will win the solar energy race
April 15, 2011
Renewable Energy Companies have started going public in a big way in the last 5 years as the Wind Industry has gone by around 30% CAGR in the last 10 years and the Solar Industry has grown by 50% CAGR.Both these industries have seen investments of more than $70 billion each in 2010.Solar companies which did not exist in public stock markets before 2006 have seen over 100 listings in the last 5 years in different stock exchanges around the world.Wind Industry which has been around much longer has not seen a lot of listings in the last 5 years as most of the companies are already listed.However a number of Chinese companies which have seen spectacular growth driven by the 100% growth per annum in the Chinese market have seen a number of listings.Other Renewable Energy companies have not been that prolific in public IPOs,though a number of clean technology companies have listed in the NASDAQ Market like Amyris,Tesla,Zipcars,A123 Systems and have gotten a good response.However for Renewable Energy Companies the USA Stock Markets have not proven very receptive in the last couple of years after seeing a boom of Chinese Solar Company listings.So which is the best stock market and the worst stock market to list if you are a Renewable Energy CFO?
April 11, 2011
Meyer Burger (MBTN.S) the 6th largest supplier of solar equipment in the world jumped up 2 places by acquiring the 7th largest global solar equipment manufacturer Roth & Rau of Germany for a little over $500 million.The combined company will have revenues of over $900 million overtaking another Germany company Centrotherm with $825 million in revs.Note Applied Materials continues to be the market leader in the solar equipment market with $1.5 billion in solar equipment revenues just like it is the leader in the semiconductor equipment market.Note while European solar module producers have seen their marketshare and revenues crumbling in the face of the Chinese onslaught , there domination of the solar equipment continues. European Solar Companies had found things going tough in 2009 as the solar market changed radically with the Lehman crisis.As the prices of the raw material Polysilicon crashed and Chinese competition increased,these companies started bleeding red ink in a prodigious manner.The high cost structure of these companies with factories in Europe stood naked against the competition.With high debt loads,there was a high chance that these companies would go bankrupt.Most of them like Q-Cells,REC started to move manufacturing to Asia while Solarworld moved to Europe.
April 6, 2011
Solar Energy in India represents one of the best Energy opportunities in the 21st Century.However the growth at least in the initial stages will be geographically unequal.This is due to the fact that Solar Power requires strong government support and subsidies currently.The Indian Federal Government has already given it a strong push targeting 1000 MW by 2013 and 20 GW by 2022 under the JNSSM.While the Subsidy Program is facing some initial hurdles due to debt financing and aggressive project bidding,individual States are forging ahead to push Solar Energy on their own.Gujarat has been a trailblazer in this regard with The State has already recieved proposals for setting up around 365 MW of Solar Power.Gujarat through its own RPS and Feed in Tariff incentives is targeting 1000 MW by 2013.Rajasthan too is trying to exploit is massive solar insolation potential but its state policies have little clarity or direction yet.The state has signed around 1524 MW of Solar Project with 49 Developers.The Solar Policy Draft Proposal is mostly vague with a target of 10-12 GW in 10-12 years with around 500 MW in the next 2-3 years.Rajasthan is set to see massive solar installation despite its government's vagueness from the Federal JNNSM subsidy.Other states in India like UP,Delhiand Maharashtra have recently started making some moves but remains to be seen how good they are at implementing.While the UP solar subsidy is clearly quite ridiculous,Delhi seems to be on the way to implementing a smart policy of promoting small roof top solar residential installations.
April 5, 2011
PV Solar Cells or Photovoltaic Solar Cells are the building blocks of Solar Panels which are used to generate electricity from the Sun in residential or commercial establishments.Solar Cells are made of crystalline silicon the same substance that is used to make semiconductors which go into making of electronic products.Note Thin Film Solar Cells are not found for practical purposes as Thin FIlm Solar Production generally is a one step continuous process in which the whole solar panel is produced.On the other hand c-Si production is a 5 step process in which Solar Cells is the intermediate product of the 4th stage and goes as input to making of solar modules/panels.Solar Cells can be bought and made into Solar Panels as PV Solar Cells don't have much of a standalone usage.Note Buying Solar Cells and making DIY Solar Panels does not make much sense as it adds little value and does not save money.You are better off buying Solar Panels from affordable solar panel manufacturers.
April 4, 2011
India is going to be the biggest Markets for Clean Technology in the world in the lines of China which has already become the largest investor in Green Industry with over $50 billion in public and private investment.India is investing heavily in solar and wind energy and its only a matter of time before other Green Sectors like Electric Vehicles,Energy Efficiency and Smart Grids receive massive investments as well.Finnish Firms with strengths in Electricity Distribution,Wind Energy,Automation are setting their sights on the Indian market which requires large infusions of Technology and Investment.
April 3, 2011
Economically also Solar Panels are starting to approach retail electricity prices in number of places in the world.Large scale solar power plants are already selling power at 10-15c/KwH which is lower than the retail electricity prices in most places.Still competition between solar panel manufacturers,improving technology and scale are making solar panel costs come down at a rapid pace.In fact Solar Panel prices have declined by more than 50% from 2008 end to 2010 and are expected to fall by an average rate of 10% in the coming years as well.However Solar Panels are seldom bought by the customers directly but are rather bought by the solar system installers/contractors.However its a good idea to know about the costs of solar panels and systems that you are paying for and not get fleeced by unscrupulous solar installers.
April 2, 2011
India has become the latest country to join in the bashing of Renminbi undervaluation saying it leads to a massive advantage for Chinese exporters.A research paper from India's Central Bank says that its artificially boosts China giving it a competitive advantage over Indian exports.Note Brazil another one of the famed BRIC quartet has too been complaining about Chinese imports swamping its industry.Note Brazil has seen massive currency appreciation in recent years due to a combination of high interest rates and strong economic fundamentals.
April 1, 2011
Solar Panels Efficiency – Range,Technology Dependence,Companies with Highest Efficient Solar Modules
The Companies that make the Solar Panels with the highest efficiences are Sunpower and Panasonic/Sanyo.Sunpower has the highest efficient solar modules in the market using a properietary process and has solar cells with efficiency reaching a top limit of 24%.Sanyo also has very efficient solar panels under the HIT brand name.These solar panels also approach the 18% range (solar modules not cells).Normal crystalline plain vanilla solar panels come in the range of 13-14%.Note solar modules have lower efficiency than solar cells as some area is left for the frame etc.There are other companies that are fast catching up to Sunpower and Sanyo in the high efficiency solar panels as well.Note higher efficiency solar panels sell at higher prices per watt as the require lesser area.AUO which has a JV with Sunpower has recently claimed to have produced the higher efficiency solar panel .
March 31, 2011
Solar Panels have become a mass phenomenon as Bloomberg reported a few days ago rivaling in explosive growth the Apple iPad. Falling prices of solar panels […]
March 30, 2011
Solar and Wind Energy are the two most widely used forms of Renewable Energy amongst others like Geothermal,Tidal,Biomass etc.While Hydro and Nuclear Energy are also considered by some to be Alternative forms of Energy,most governments do not count these two in their renewable targets.Wind Energy has been the dominant amongst the 2 in the last 2 decades as falling prices of Wind Power has made it more widely used.However the rapidly declining costs of Solar Energy has made it the faster growing of the two with 50% annual growth being seen in the last decade.Solar Energy also has a much larger potential than any other form of Energy.However its higher costs have inhibited its growth till now,however the entry of low cost Asian producers and fast technology innovation has already brought solar power on parity with fossil fuels in some places like Italy,Turkey,Hawai etc.
March 30, 2011
Solar Roofs are a niche area but is growing in popularity with the entry of more and more companies selling products tailormade for this area.What are Solar Roofs exactly - does it mean a Roof with Solar Panels installed on it or something else.Solar Roofs are not roofs where solar electricity is generated by putting in solar mounting/racking systems and mainstream solar panels,rather they are roofs where specialized solar products called solar shingles are installed.Solar Roofs can also mean a roof where Building Integrated Photovoltaic products are installed.Some companies make BIPV products like flexible solar panels or organic/dye solar cell panels ( these are niche companies).
March 30, 2011
Sharp is the biggest company in the world in terms of making revenues from sales of solar panels so it seems counterintuitive for someone to recommend not buying Sharp Solar Panels.However this Japanese Conglomerate has been losing marketshare rapidly to cheaper Asian competitors.Sharp due to its factories in high cost locations makes solar panels at a much higher cost and sells them at much higher prices as well.The reason is that they manage to sell so many solar panels is that consumers are not educated about other better options and the other solar panel companies don't have the distribution networks.Note Sharp has been trying to diversify away from crystalline solar panels to thin film solar panels.The reason is that they are losing the competitive advantage to Chinese companies like Trina Solar and others.
March 29, 2011
Solar Panel Manufacturers globally have kept on increasing due to the fast growing nature of the industry and low entry barriers.However most of the solar panel manufacturers have high costs and low quality.Most of these producers have little growth prospects and are a bad choice to buy from as they might go bellyup.This would lead to a void of the 25 year warranty of the solar panels.So it makes sense only to buy from the biggest and best solar manufacturers in the world.Solar Panel Manufacturers are present in most parts of the world with Korea,China,Taiwan,USA,Japan and Germany dominating.However small solar panel producers are also present in most countries like Spain,Greece,India etc.Solar Panels are of mainly 2 type - crystalline and thin film.Most of the solar panels produced today are of the crystalline type and are mostly used in residential rooftops.Thin film panels are mostly used in large ground solar power plants.Thin film solar panels are of lower efficiency and are lower priced as well.However falling costs of crystalline solar panels has led to their increasing dominance.
March 29, 2011
Cheap Solar Panels are widely available with the entry of a multitude of Korean,Chinese and Taiwanese companies.Most of these solar panel manufacturers are fighting on price and have decent quality.With little to differentiate between solar panels made by different firms,cheapness has become the main selling point for these solar panels.Cheap Solar Panels can be bought by an informed customers as expensive Western and Japanese brands still hold a large marketshare.But buying these brands might not make sense economically or environmentally.You can easily avoid buying solar panels from BP Solar because they outsource manufacturing of their solar panels to cheaper locations.It is common sense to buy cheaper solar panels from the companies located in those low cost locations.
March 28, 2011
Free Solar Panels don't exist just as Free iPads don't exist.Some websites and companies advertize free solar power or free solar panels based on government subsidies.Note even these free solar power offers are not completely free as they have a payback periods depending on how much government subsidies are given.Nobody is going to give you a free solar panel or a free iPad without a catch.
March 28, 2011
British Petroleum (BP) the multi billion dollar Oil and Gas Conglomerate is a strange player in the Renewable Energy Sector of Solar Energy.BP was a dominant company amongst the top 10 global manufacturers of solar panels till a few years ago.However the lack of interest on the part of management,low investment,lack of R&D has made it a bit player in the fast growing solar panel market.Companies which did not exist till a few years ago have outpaced BP to become top solar panel producers.However BP Solar Panels continue to sell in a number of market because of existing sales relationships and brand name.However it is only uneducated and uninformed consumers who are buying BP Solar Panels in my opinion.BP Solar Panels should be avoided both from an economic point of view and from the environment perspective.
March 19, 2011
German's Solar Energy Market is the biggest in the world by a fair margin.Germany installed almost 6 gigawatts of solar panels in 2010 taking the total installed capacity to almost 16 GW which is 40% of the world's total installed solar capacity.Note Germany's Photovoltaic Solar Electricity now forms almost 10-15% of the total electricity production in the country at peak time.Note Germany's solar industry got a renewed boost when 7 old nuclear plants were shutdown following Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Disaster recently.Previously Germany had decided to extend the operating life of its Nuclear Plants despite stiff opposition.Germany Solar Subsidy which is framed under the Renewable Energy EEG law has made Germany one of the world's leaders in Wind,Solar and Biomass Energy.Germany's Manufacturing Industry has benefited from the strong domestic market with many of the world's top solar panel companies located there.Solar equipment,inverters and cell companies are also present in large numbers.Recently Germany amended its Feed in Tariff Law to slowdown the exponential growth in solar panel installations.This is over and above the regular reduction in solar subsidies done each year.
March 17, 2011
China's Solar Industry is the biggest in the world with 5 of the biggest Solar Panel Manufacturers being Chinese.The low costs of Chinese Solar Panels have made them capture almost 40% of the world's market in 2010 up from almost 0% in 2005.The remarkable growth in the Chinese Solar Panel Industry has been due to the supportive government,low labour and capital costs and aggressive competition.This has made the higher cost solar panel manufactures cut their prices in order to retain their marketshare.Trina Solar has shown the best growth amongst the solar panel producers and it now competes with Suntech which is the world's biggest solar panel producer.China has also got a number of Tier 2 and Tier 3 producers of solar panels.These small solar panel companies sell mostly in the spot market and quote very low prices.The quality of the solar panels of smaller companies is also suspect.Due diligence and Review of Solar Panels is necessary in order to Buy Solar Panels from China.
March 10, 2011
Solar Companies have proliferated in the last decade as the Solar Energy Industry has seen a 50% CAGR in the past 10 years exploding by almost […]
February 7, 2011
The European Solar Companies have found things going tough in 2009 as the solar market changed radically with the Lehman crisis.As the prices of the raw material Polysilicon crashed and Chinese competition increased,these companies started bleeding red ink in a prodigious manner.The high cost structure of these companies with factories in Europe stood naked against the competition.With high debt loads,there was a high change that these companies would go bankrupt.Most of them like Q-Cells,REC started to move manufacturing to Asia while Solarworld moved to Europe.Other smaller companies muddled through.However a spectacular 2010 growth in world solar demand has brought new life into these companies.With capacity constrained,even their higher prices could be absorbed by solar installers.These companies have reported much better 2010 results with Solarworld and REC leading the way.
February 7, 2011
The Chinese Penetrate the US Solar Utility Market – exclusive playground of First Solar and Sunpower
The US Solar Utility Market has been the preserve of the 2 largest US Solar Module Players Sunpower and First Solar.While other Solar Panel Makers have won small deals,these 2 companies have dominated the US Utility Market so far.Sunpower has been very successful in the commercial,municipal and utility segments winning a huge number of deals even as its residential dominance evaporated.The bigger Chinese solar producers like Trina,Yingli,Suntech had already taken over the residential market in California with their much cheaper prices.Now even the larger utility market is under threat from the low cost companies from Asia.Note upstream producers like LDK and GCL Poly are also targeting the system development market in US through acquisitions and alliances.The 250 MW Sempra Generation solar plant being built in Arizona will source Suntech modules and will be completed by 2013.This is a huge order win by Suntech which is the largest module producer in 2010 and could see other Chinese producers using this as a template to push out Sunpower and First Solar.
August 23, 2010
The United Nations is reviewing the Carbon Credit Requests from 5 plants in China and their is a high probability of cancellation of these requests.NGOs and activists have alleged that these HFC plants emit more GreenHouse Gases (GHGs) than is required in the normal function of the plants.This leads to increased revenue from neutralizing these gases defeating the entire purpose of the CDM scheme.Carbon Trading has repeatedly been proved to be an inefficient and ineffective scheme,but its popularity continues to increase around the world.The Scheme is suitable for niche purposes and is totally inadequate as a holistic response to the problem of Climate Change
August 17, 2010
The stock might offer some short term profits for high risk traders on a dead cat bounce,but it is definitely not a fundamental pick.Unless the company really makes significant progress on the revenue and orders front,it is not a buy in my book.