Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
You may want follow up the link here with comments from analysts. http://bit.ly/x6ioAt I stated that CdTe made a claim to be the "best" in hot climate, I did not argue that multi-crystalline are better, where n type mono cells definitely are better. If you make a claim like that and then accrue money for claims against it , I found that surprising. Mono would lose its initial power in light. However quasi-mono modules, once from China Sunergy, are being installed in India and plans are for large scale
Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
Hi All, I submitted correction in regards of the climate related charges. Those charges were only $37M for 5GW of product sold, which translates to 1% increase in accrual. This amount is part of $253M. I was aware of this but few people found this confusing, apparently while reading my article. Article by Greentech Media on SA shows the breakdown of those charges http://seekingalpha.co...
Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
Hi s2009, thank for your comment. I do not speak of profit, but more of the growth. This article is about cost, not whether the cost is going to bring earnings. Industry is in the transition, the best profit may be not to lose money first, what happens next is hard to predict. 900MW will be sold in China, while 1GW in Europe. They had sold 900MW or so in Europe in 2011. Germany is only 600MW this year
Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
AGA7d, very good points and thank you for your quality feedback. Mono- crystalline modules do not get heat degradation issues and ones using n-type, do not lose its power to LID. Quasi-mono has similar material characteristics to mono, but cost performance of multi, example China Sunergy in India. Your point on cost of CdTe still being viable is very good. The FSLR itself has a road map to get their cost to $0.50 and increase conversion. The road map for c-Si modules is in range of 17 to 18% conversion for this very year for the Chinese, Sunpower is already there with their modules. 12% to 16% is a 33% difference, for the same cost it will turn few heads.
Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
Hi Boomers, thank you very much for your feedback. GCL holds another ace card, imho, which will help its customers (TSL, CSIQ, JASO). All companies using wafers from GCL will have a chance sell their modules back to GCL. The importation fees can be easily absorbed in BOS, for company which runs on Chinese components and has as good, and perhaps in many aspects, better quality. I think that GCL will provide better clarity on this in the middle of March. Unofficially, projected numbers are in multiples of 100MWs for next few years.
I can appreciate your attempt to summarize what is happening in the industry. Solar has been called a commodity for long time. Apparently, the cell is the same everywhere on the globe according to industry critics. Not the same Evergreen or Solon would argue. Solyndra would argue as well if they ever made a single cell. The difference is a cost and the conversion power. Those two concepts will separate a lot of overcapacity, which a good chunk of is not bankable anyway. I wouldn't also confuse overcapacity with lack of the demand. Companies which sold 60% more products in 2011 had a huge demand but sold at the pricing matched market’s ASP erosion. If you are going out of business you liquidate. 50 to 60% businesses had sold their product at liquidation prices as they produced above the cash cost and could only sell below it. That inventory maybe still there but nobody is rushing to get it, why? It is because this product has no staying power. Sure you can buy a module at .85 cents per watt on spot, but you are buying stuff "as is" and "as is" may have only 3 months to live. Let’s touch on parity. Nuclear and hydro power costs $.04 kWh, coal around $.05, NG is around $0.10. At price $1.5 per watt installed this is exactly what today's 16.2% module at 80% degradation can deliver in 25 years . Good module is $1 per watt, so other BOS costs need to come down on their own pressures and that is a still long way to go in US particularly. In Europe system less than 100 kWh gets installed for $2.20 per watt this month. In Europe electricity is a lot more expensive than $ .12 average residential US rate. This rate would be accomplished at $4.25/watt installed. Apparently second half of 2011 had an average residential rate per watt at $5.99 and Look ma, no subsidies! Certainly, this is not done with borrowed money, but your utility company does not need to borrow.. Those went for $3.75 per watt. For critics, it is always all or nothing. Solar today is not meant to be a sole energy source but a supplemental one, until viable storing solution is found. However, why not store other sources and regulate the peak usage with solar? Apparently 1 billion people live without electricity every day and without chance to get it, as the world consumption for energy grows daily. What do we have for them? What about energy independence, jobs? Installation and maintenance creates 7 jobs per MW, versus manufacturing 2. Every year new solar plants are added. The biggest one in Germany has 178MW of power and 148MW of it were built in 3 months this year. The nuclear plant takes 20 to 30 years, and you have to be very unlucky to live next to one. By the way, modules used there are 232W average. German company Schott had shown 285W module few months back. So the same size plant can produce 22% more power. The same Yingli is talking about module conversion of 18% or 295W en masse production by the 2013. In 2007, average module output was 175W, which cost 3 times more than today and we got 32% output increase now. Ironically fossil fuel cost is going into a different direction, so why not to save it that fuel first? Progress moves solar technology in a speed which outruns any other energy generation area, including conservation of fossil fuels. I am rather surprise how much weight media placed on 400MW plant being built by Foxconn, the same way they placed on 330MW of LG capacity and 130MW of Samsung capacity. What does this mean they are coming? LG abandoned 5000MT poly plant project trying to build it at $91 capex per kg, while GCL does the same at $38 per kg. modules is a lot easier than building poly plants just ask Japanese, who have lost to China its leadership as creators of solar energy. Japanese companies like Panasonic, Sharp and Kyocera look for OEM agreements to toll their modules in China, and put their brand-name label at home to lower own costs. The most authorities, and I am not talking about Bloomberg or Forbes, speak of 30GW in 2012, so how is Foxconn’s 1% impact anything? Again, apples to orange's comparison (I said apples) is the scale where they can make out with 5% gross margin. Their 400MW module plant will give them $360M in revenue at $.90 per watt if they produce that much by the end 2012. However, their amortization of the plant costs worth $1.6B even in 10 years will cost them $160M annual or .40 per watt. Best companies in the world produce modules at .65 today, without poly costs and Foxconn has .50 cents left. http://bit.ly/vQdiyq
Solar Trade Dispute Could Delay U.S. Projects But Help U.S. Manufacturers [View article]
I am curious if Asbeck asked American consumers if they were willing to spend extra money to fuel profits of SolarWorld. In order to rescue profit by selling expensive modules, Asbek uses demagogy of saving couple of thousand jobs. If petition is a success he is endangering a trade surplus in equipment and machinery worth $1.9B a year to American economy. Chinese panels offer low cost and thousands of jobs across country in maintenance and installation due to demand created by low ASP. The 100,000 employed in solar may lose the 1,300 out of the headcount if SolarWorld factory goes bust, but if one was to reverse this will cost 50K jobs. We are on the verge of solar becoming viable energy by removing the only reasonable argument against it, cost. American public companies like Sunpower and First Solar can and will be able to compete. As prior posters noted ability to lower cost and technological innovation are a key to global competition. No xenophobia and protectionism will reverse realities of the American consumer society and what is the progress in this case. I think that author forgets what role in the world China is playing these days. American status of economic power has changed to worse and continues to deteriorate. I would be very surprised if this pleaser for uneducated and attention grabber of dying company will try to provoke vacuum which will make Chinese kick American companies out of China, embargo all the solar imports and look for influence from South Korea, Japan, Germany and Switzerland. Particularly risky is taking American interests out of China when China is becoming a consumer society itself. I hope there is a little more brain left in our politicians than just cheap show of economic ignorance. Congratulations to the author on touching a subject nobody respected would even consider writing on. The silence of American companies which are in the public eye conflicts with amount of time media put into this embarrassment. All professional trade and otherwise organizations have sustained themselves from commenting, since they cannot support twisted intentions built on convoluted and bent facts. The financial world has made bets on the failure of solar and now has another opportunity to sensationalize Chinese as perpetrators to serve their corporate objectives. Cheap solar energy is a danger to a many groups built around how this country manages its energy needs and how those needs create profit. Finding an opportunity within to confuse and deflect is a best way to damage reputation if even for a moment. There is not stopping of the progress, however. I hope USA will not leave itself out of it.
Rock, I am curious how you see that polysilicon price will increase value of (DQ loss of margins, own poly LDK no benefit), small wafer capacity CSIQ buys wafer on market and will continue to do so in Q2 with JV with GCL. JKS which has always bought on spot and has seen gains for last 10 months, losses its advantage to brand over price if big names will benefit from poly costs. JKS is probably one which will sell below ASP, having that benefit in the first place but at one point in 2012 that gap will be out. JKS has spent 2M in R&D in H1, YGE and TSL each $23M. In pursuit of quality, JKS may be classified as cheap wholesaler among others. The view is a short term not a 14 month benefit view.
If I understand correctly you are saying that CSIQ will make 2.23 per share therefore price tag is 13.39 with PE of 6 ? What is the factor to lift 6% GM in Q3 to produce such a result in 2012? Lastly YGE and TSL will have their margins in area of 12 to 15%, Is your opinion that TSL will make around 1.37 to get 10% gain from its current price using PE6 thanks
ReneSola Will Survive A Solar Recession [View article]
I hope that management of Renesola understands the opportunity of this situation and the gravity of failing to execute commitment made. They can turn this to a very nice crisp move to put value behind the shares or just add more doubt to already tested credibility of this group particularity overexposed by big talking LDK. solarpvinvestor.com/
Great call on LDK. I see you have SOL as overvalued? What is driving your table 52 week high and low? Come on, a bit of fundamentals and tech behind it would help. What does make SOL oversold and LDK undervalued. check this site, to see what is really showing solarpvinvestor.com/in...
Doing research will help. OCI sold $3B of poly to Trina, Suntech and Ja Solar in march, 2011 for deliveries in 2012. GCL does not have enough capacity to fulfil the demand from own clients. Yes their cost is unmatched right now, but end product is module and anyone who buys poly from GCL will spend more money than LDK will spend on own poly building own module on it. Fully vertically integrated company like LDK can lose wafer contracts to tier 1 Chinese, but beyond that nobody has a cheaper pricing and in house production will always be cheaper than any purchase. First solar, has lost in every single area for Q1, no growth, loss of GM and loss of income. Their share of market shrank once again. solarpvinvestor.com/20...
What Japan Crisis Means for Solar Stocks [View article]
Well, China is going to double its solar objective to 10GW according to late article from Reuters this evening. The old world assumption about solar living off subsidies needs go to passage. Ironically the same Japan plans to add 400 billion yen in solar subs. Place where parity is right on the corner same as in Italy which is probably already at it. I guess the government there sees greater impact than armchair strategists providing scenarios similar to yours. Continue to write articles using phrases like "short lived", "cutting support", Use example of struggling European companies which will go bankrupt while trying to match low Asian costs. Press was trying to scare weak at heart with Q-cells the entire day. In the meantime Chinese will continue take over the market from 61% in 2010 to 73% in 2011. Solar industry is a fact. You may not like it and that is fine ,but one should never be ignorant about the facts. UK has 100MW market, this is what solar global industry has for one day of the year in capacity. Renesola sells that many modules in a quarter. Spain? 500MW this is what Suntech produces in modules per quarter. Global market this year is going to be in area of 22GW. Solar gets more affordable while other sources of energy become more expensive. These are facts. GLTA
SunPower: Likely Beneficiary of Japanese Residential Solar Demand Response [View article]
SunPower receives 20% of its wafer supply from M.Setek. How are they going to build their panels without wafers? The low quality of Chinese? You need to do more research in this area.
Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
http://bit.ly/x6ioAt
I stated that CdTe made a claim to be the "best" in hot climate, I did not argue that multi-crystalline are better, where n type mono cells definitely are better. If you make a claim like that and then accrue money for claims against it , I found that surprising. Mono would lose its initial power in light. However quasi-mono modules, once from China Sunergy, are being installed in India and plans are for large scale
Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
I submitted correction in regards of the climate related charges. Those charges were only $37M for 5GW of product sold, which translates to 1% increase in accrual. This amount is part of $253M. I was aware of this but few people found this confusing, apparently while reading my article. Article by Greentech Media on SA shows the breakdown of those charges
http://seekingalpha.co...
Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
Manufacturing Costs At First Solar No Longer Offer Advantage Over The Chinese Solar Companies [View article]
The Solar Commodification [View article]
Every year new solar plants are added. The biggest one in Germany has 178MW of power and 148MW of it were built in 3 months this year. The nuclear plant takes 20 to 30 years, and you have to be very unlucky to live next to one. By the way, modules used there are 232W average. German company Schott had shown 285W module few months back. So the same size plant can produce 22% more power. The same Yingli is talking about module conversion of 18% or 295W en masse production by the 2013. In 2007, average module output was 175W, which cost 3 times more than today and we got 32% output increase now. Ironically fossil fuel cost is going into a different direction, so why not to save it that fuel first? Progress moves solar technology in a speed which outruns any other energy generation area, including conservation of fossil fuels. I am rather surprise how much weight media placed on 400MW plant being built by Foxconn, the same way they placed on 330MW of LG capacity and 130MW of Samsung capacity. What does this mean they are coming? LG abandoned 5000MT poly plant project trying to build it at $91 capex per kg, while GCL does the same at $38 per kg. modules is a lot easier than building poly plants just ask Japanese, who have lost to China its leadership as creators of solar energy. Japanese companies like Panasonic, Sharp and Kyocera look for OEM agreements to toll their modules in China, and put their brand-name label at home to lower own costs. The most authorities, and I am not talking about Bloomberg or Forbes, speak of 30GW in 2012, so how is Foxconn’s 1% impact anything? Again, apples to orange's comparison (I said apples) is the scale where they can make out with 5% gross margin. Their 400MW module plant will give them $360M in revenue at $.90 per watt if they produce that much by the end 2012. However, their amortization of the plant costs worth $1.6B even in 10 years will cost them $160M annual or .40 per watt. Best companies in the world produce modules at .65 today, without poly costs and Foxconn has .50 cents left.
http://bit.ly/vQdiyq
Solar Trade Dispute Could Delay U.S. Projects But Help U.S. Manufacturers [View article]
Congratulations to the author on touching a subject nobody respected would even consider writing on. The silence of American companies which are in the public eye conflicts with amount of time media put into this embarrassment. All professional trade and otherwise organizations have sustained themselves from commenting, since they cannot support twisted intentions built on convoluted and bent facts. The financial world has made bets on the failure of solar and now has another opportunity to sensationalize Chinese as perpetrators to serve their corporate objectives. Cheap solar energy is a danger to a many groups built around how this country manages its energy needs and how those needs create profit. Finding an opportunity within to confuse and deflect is a best way to damage reputation if even for a moment. There is not stopping of the progress, however. I hope USA will not leave itself out of it.
Solar Winners For 2012 [View article]
I am curious how you see that polysilicon price will increase value of (DQ loss of margins, own poly LDK no benefit), small wafer capacity CSIQ buys wafer on market and will continue to do so in Q2 with JV with GCL. JKS which has always bought on spot and has seen gains for last 10 months, losses its advantage to brand over price if big names will benefit from poly costs. JKS is probably one which will sell below ASP, having that benefit in the first place but at one point in 2012 that gap will be out. JKS has spent 2M in R&D in H1, YGE and TSL each $23M. In pursuit of quality, JKS may be classified as cheap wholesaler among others. The view is a short term not a 14 month benefit view.
If I understand correctly you are saying that CSIQ will make 2.23 per share therefore price tag is 13.39 with PE of 6 ?
What is the factor to lift 6% GM in Q3 to produce such a result in 2012?
Lastly YGE and TSL will have their margins in area of 12 to 15%, Is your opinion that TSL will make around 1.37 to get 10% gain from its current price using PE6
thanks
ReneSola Will Survive A Solar Recession [View article]
solarpvinvestor.com/
Is Solar Hitting the Skids? [View article]
Come on, a bit of fundamentals and tech behind it would help. What does make SOL oversold and LDK undervalued.
check this site, to see what is really showing
solarpvinvestor.com/in...
JA Solar Hit by Wafer Market Whipsaws [View article]
2 Solar Stocks Worth Watching [View article]
First solar, has lost in every single area for Q1, no growth, loss of GM and loss of income. Their share of market shrank once again.
solarpvinvestor.com/20...
Some solar companies that gain from reduced wafer spot prices [View instapost]
solarpvinvestor.com/wa...
First solar does not use wafers
What Japan Crisis Means for Solar Stocks [View article]
GLTA
SunPower: Likely Beneficiary of Japanese Residential Solar Demand Response [View article]