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    • Sat Apr 19th 20:27 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      They're at least doubling production each year and the trend is increasing, but let's use a doubling each year. And i think they're charging about $2/Wp in 2008. So in 2012, the last year I'm estimating they'll have Te, I get:

      2^4 x 0.4 GWp in 2008 x $2/Wp x (1-0.065)^4 = $10 B gross in 2012.

      2^4 x 0.4 GW = 6.4 GWp in 2012, costing $0.60/Wp to produce is $3.84 B cost, giving 10-3.84= $6.16B profit, PE=4 at today's price.
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    • Sat Apr 19th 20:15 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      Speaking of Tesla, Mark might want to look into the 500 pounds of barium titanate that would be needed to make 2.5 "gallons" of energy storage in EEStor, the only company making claims about real ultracapacitors for EV. It costs $10/pound. World production has enough annual titanium dioxide production for 37 million cars and plenty of reserves. About the same numbers for barium.

      lithium batteries needed for 60 million small EV would require six times the current annual lithium production.
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    • Sat Apr 19th 16:47 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      To clarify, it's fairly valued today if you want a PE=20 in 3.5 years, and there's the real possibility that that will be the limit of the growth, so to me at these prices, this is not a safe growth stock anymore. PE=5 is a very hopeful limit. I prefer stocks that have higher growth potential. Like Brazilian banks.
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    • Sat Apr 19th 16:42 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      What's your tellurium story? My tellurium story is that they make 2.5GWp/yr without breaking a sweat, the equivalent of 1/4 of a nuclear power plant per year. At only $0.50 profit per Wp that's a PE=20 worst case scenario in 2011. So it's fairly valued to me. In 1Q 2011, at the latest, people will be saying "Oh my God" at this growth history. Then it will really go nuts. Only an admission about Te could slow t up. As i said before (and got 2 "boo-hiss's" in reply), with no legitimate competitors and a very simple end product it's way too predictable. Zero need for marketing and an almost inexhaustible supply of buyers. But I have no faith that the stock will stay this high for 6 months. I'll wait for another 25% drop and maybe pick it up then.
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    • Sat Apr 19th 10:56 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      There's no need to insult. Well i guess i was wrong in thinking he was playing close attention to it. World production of Te in 2006 by the most optimistic report was 500,000 kg, 5x10^8 grams. FSLR uses 0.1g/Wp. So if FSLR corners half the Te market, and if Te production doesn't increase, and if they don't go from 3 micron to 1.5 micron, then 2.5GW (2011) is the no-more-growth point for FSLR. That's the unfriendly assumptions. The friendly assumptions stated above are 40 GWp possible in 2016.
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    • Fri Apr 18th 13:28 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
      Is it wise to install a solar system in an area that has golf-ball sized hail once every 10 years?
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    • Fri Apr 18th 08:00 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      fxtrader, my dreamy calculation of 40 GWp for 2016 is based on FSLR's belief that they will become cost-competitive with coal. If that happens, the question isn't "who would buy it?" but the question is "who wouldn't buy it?"

      You seem to think silicon costs will get cheaper than FSLR's expected $0.60/Wp (pre-install) and 13% efficiency (which determines install $). What do you think silicon technology production cost and efficiency will be?

      Interesting side note, i think it was global solar's page where i saw them selling "SunTracker(TM)&q... that increases effective efficiency by 30%. It would require more land area to spread the modules out because of shadows. It would be interesting to know how much $1/Wp that would add.

      Can solar cells be used in areas that have hail at least once every 10 years, i.e. half the U.S.?

      $4/Wp installed in good locations (6 kWh/d/m^2) results in the following costs in cents/kWh:
      25 year usefulness and 0% loan: 7.4, 5%: 12.8, 7%: 15.4
      35 year usefulness and 0% loan: 5.2, 5%: 11, 7%: 14

      I used 0% because a 7% loan now for a house installation might be 0% after tax deduction and a 5% inflation increase for energy prices for the next 30 years.

      Current home costs of $8/Wp (with battery back up) are found by doubling the numbers above. 2010 utility costs of $2/Wp are found by cutting the numbers in half. Efficiency does not matter except to reduce installed cost. If California homes today used their hybrid car batteries as the battery backup, Californians would find today's solar cells only twice as expensive as $4/gallon of gasoline. Not needing battery backup other than the car offsets the increased price of the car.
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    • Thu Apr 17th 20:42 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      Anthony, I'm sure Andrew has carefully read our stuff on Tellurium. I believe his gut is telling him Ken Zweibel (sp) and FSLR are to be trusted on this, at least until Feb 2012, about when my article says FSLR should start seeing Te troubles. And unlike me and you, he's smart enough to be quiet about it. But then again, as i posted above, it really is possible to have enough Te to extend the run until 2016, and even longer if their growth will slow up a little. That PE will drop very consistently because of the simple thing they are doing. Can anyone name a simpler or more predictable business than FSLR? Especially compared to all the other solars. I'm the sole owner of a 1-man business and I have only a vague idea where it will be in 6 months, but i know very well where FSLR production and profit is going to be in 4 years. This is probably why everyone holding no matter what. Who could have ever imagined a super-high growth company that's predictable?
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    • Thu Apr 17th 20:32 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      Andrew has done so well the past year, it's hard for anyone to criticize his methods, reasoning, or knowledge. The most troubling thing i see is going so heavy on margin. Has he ever gone up to a poker table on margin?

      I would never short FSLR because simply watching the stock everyday in comparision to other solars, I have had this strong feeling that a very large pool of money has no intention of selling. SPWR crashed today for the opposite reason: plenty of people (like me) thought it was a good short-term bet and were getting out after the so-so news. This won't happen with FSLR if they stay near guidance.

      FSLR refused to budge lately on good news, and refused to sell on bad. It's solid where it is.
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    • Thu Apr 17th 20:14 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      This is an addendum to my 2.5 cents/kWh above. Since all the costs are up-front whereas most of coal or nuclear costs are spread out over many years, a penalty has to be added to solar costs for investing everything at once. A 5% loan for 35 years increases the total costs by a factors of 2, or 5 cents/kWh which places FSLR on par with coal in the best case scenario explained above.
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    • Thu Apr 17th 20:05 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
      My calculation is the same except they take into account a 5% "loan" for having to up-front the costs. That gives 10 cents/kWh at $2.5/Wp when the loan is spread out over 25 years. A more realistic 7% loan for home owners would make it 12 cents/kWh. Currently the price is $8/Wp. The magic number for utilities to find it profitable is more like $1.25/Wp.

      solarbuzz.com/Consumer...
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    • Thu Apr 17th 18:24 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      One big difference between FSLR and CSCO and DELL is that FSLR's path so much much much more predictable. It's very simple stuff. Building identical plants, making the same simple single (SSS) product, at half the price of the competition. Doubling every 9 to 12 months for 7 years in a row, and getting faster. Capacity expansion is not a problem for SSS products. I'm with you on it being a crazy PE of 114 this year forward, but for long term green thinking big-money holders, there's no conceivable reason that the PE can't be 4 in 5 years....unless they're lying about the price reduction and improvements they expect.
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    • Thu Apr 17th 17:58 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
      Steve, I said southeast, not southwest. Here's the "solar insolation" on wiki for the sunlight chart:
      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      It's for standard latitude tilt, south facing solar systems. 6-7 kWh/d/m^2 for most of southwest, 5-5.5 for southeast, yearly average. Multiply by 13% efficiency x 365 x 25 yr to get the amount of 7117 kWh/25yr/m^2 for 13% eff modules. A m^2 of FSLR will someday be 13% producing which is 130 Wpeak/m^2 (1 kW/m^2 max Sun x 0.13) and at $3/Wpeak means $260/m^2 for FSLR. For 6 kWh/d/m^2 this yields $260/7117 = $0.0365/kWh/25yr

      I used $1/Wp profit to help justify current stock price and as long as there is no competition, they don't need to lower it. We can reduce it to $0.50/Wp to get $0.03/kwh/25 yr. $1/Wp installation might also be possible, bringing it down to $0.024/kWh/25yr

      These numbers are for large installations. Small installations might be twice as high, less than the $0.08/kWh you've calculated.

      A 10kWp solar system would provide only 1.7 kW when averaged over 24 hour. A household of 2 requires about 6 kW averaged over the course of a day to power the house and car. This would require a 30 kWp solar system at the house. Someday, an installed system at the house might be only $4/Wp including energy storage and therefore cost only $0.05/kWh, but that's a $120K loan to be paid off, something like $900/month on a 25-year loan, and the system is used up by the end of the loan. Suddenly it doesn't look like a $0.05/kWh system (half price from the utlity) anymore. That's the importance of making a distinction between Wp and actual watts: the large initial outlay. So the $2/W capital cost of coal and nuclear can't be compared to the $1/Wp capital cost of solar cells, because that $2/W is 24 hr/day for 40 years but the $1/Wp for solar cells averages out to $5/W over 24 hours for 25 years.

      If you have some numbers showing how solar distribution is a lot cheaper than nuclear distribution, I'd like to see them. Likewise, i'd like to see a source that says daytime power is 5 times more valuable.

      30 nuke plants are being built right now. Construction itself takes 4 years (from WNAI web site). In the U.S., it's obviously a little more difficult than that.
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    • Thu Apr 17th 13:53 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Now in Its Third Leg Up
      I can take a more optimistic view of FSLR than my previous posts. It's possible that FSLR can produce 40 GWp/yr (10 GW/yr actual) at half the cost of nuclear and coal and have enough Tellurium to do it. This would extend the current growth to 2016. Here's why:

      Tellurium production is about 500 TPY. Copper's historical trend and current price clearly indicate doubling production by 2016 is possible, and as explained before, a doubling of recovery efficiency is possible. 1.5 micron is possible which means 0.05g/Wp is possible. They can also out-buy everyone else's tellurium. So 2000 TPY at 0.05/Wp is 40 GWp/y.

      FSLR could easily have a PE=1.6 and produce 40 GWp/y while accepting half to 1/3 their current profit/Wp and thereby cost 1/2 as much as coal and nuclear. I get 2.5 cents/kWh for FSLR. Coal and nuclear could easily reach 5 cents/kWh by 2016...even if the dollar doesn't fall anymore. The 2.5 cents/kWh is calculated from their guidance:

      ($0.60/Wp cost + $0.40/Wp profit + $1/Wp installation) x 13% x 1000 Wp/m^2 / (7 kWh/d/m^2 x 365 days x 35 years) = 2.5 cents/kWh

      The $1/Wp install and 35 years are optimistic. 7 kWh/d/m^2 is very best locations in U.S.
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    • Wed Apr 16th 13:29 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
      I don't see where i made an error. I gave FSLR $3/Wp in 2012, which is pretty much the same as $3.50 now. We know they're selling now close to $2/Wp, so that gives the same installation cost ($1.50/Wp) which I assume won't go down much and I expect them to keep a $1/Wp profit margin. They expect to reduce costs by $0.50/Wp by 2012, so my numbers are pretty much exact on that. Keep in mind that $3/Wp is $14 per actual watt when averaged over 24 hr in relatively sunny places like the southeast U.S. that averages only 5kWh/day/m^2 of sun. The best places in the world are 9 kWh/day which would be $8/W actual as the best FSLR can ever do. This is before distribution and power company profit margins, so i don't know why you're complaining about the same omission when it comes to coal and nukes. Is there something cheaper about solar cell distribution? The costs for solar will be even higher on home installations. Notice that my 15 cents/kWh at the house for nuke is 5 times higher than the accepted 3 cents/kWh for nuclear. This allows 60% losses, a great profit margin, and overcoming even U.S. regulatory hurdles. Of course coal could have CO2 and that's just another reason to go nuclear. Let me know if you find any errors in my numbers.
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