oaksleeksbeans

Even Thin Solar Can't Weather Silicon Glut - Barron's

I run a solar electric program in a medium sized state. Last year we cofunded about 870 kW of installed systems. This month we got in about 200 kW of applications. This is before the stimulus money hits. This year may surprise the forecasters.

Want Solar Panels? China Will Pick Up the Tab

Let us assume $5/watt, annual generation of 1.4 kilowatt hours (kWhs)/watt of PV and see what price of power would be required for a PV system to pay for itself it two years.

First cost: $5/watt
Cost after incentive: $2/watt
Generation per year: 1.4 kWh
Generation over two years: 2.8 kWh

Cost of power required to payback over two years:
$2/2.8 kWh = 71 cents a kWh

Electric prices are not that high, not even in Hawaii. I currently pay about 13 cents per kWh here in the Midwest.

You can be sure that power prices are far lower in China.

Two Calculated Risks Possibly Worth Taking

When Obama speaks about solar... he speaks of building solar panels, not installing them. This gets me thinking he wants to providing manufacturing incentives for building manufacturing plants in the US. Those plants could may be buy their cells from LDK.

LDK Solar Has Caught My Attention

I find it interesting that the Chinese Export Import bank recently helped out Yingli with their credit needs.

I believe the Chinese gov't will stand behind most of the larger Chinese solar firms... not letting them fall or run out of credit.

okb

Lithium-Ion Batteries and Centerfolds: The Final Chapter

No mention of the role of ultra capacitors operating in tandem with batteries in electric vehciles. Two end member companies in this sector are Maxwell Technologies MXWL (established) and Enable IPC EIPC.ob (rank start up).

What are your thoughts on ultra capacitors?

LDK Solar: The Brightest Opportunity?

I believe that the refined polysilicon LDK will be making has a seriously large future.

I do not see a huge near term future for thinfilm because is it less efficient, requires more racking, more installation labor, more balance of system and is bulkier to ship. It makes the most sense in large open field arrays.

Also the open sunny land for large field arrays - is only available in some areas. Siting it will increasingly be a challange. Simply look at what the BLM recent tried in the SW U.S. by attempting to put a halt to solar development for two years. That story is not over.

Concentrated solar only makes sense where there is significant direct been radiation (i.e., dry deserts)... which is not where people live. Instead we tend to live in areas with clouds and rain.

Crystalline Si solar electric technology looks to maintain it edge over other technologies due largely to it proven high efficiency that can work under direct and diffuse beam radiation. The modules deserve their 25 year warrantee.

But their price needs to come down - as all solar analysts, CEOs and consultants predict.

Crystalline modules make sense on rooftops because they are more efficient. But also because they compete against the retail price of power (and can reduce the building's demand charges) not the wholesale price of power (unlike an open field array).

Upgraded Metallurigcal Grade silicon is already playing a roll in the Crystalline SI market (note CSIQ and Timmenco). It will be mixed with Poly and help drive down module prices toward grid parity sooner. It is grid parity that will exponently grow markets for poly. I predict that UMG will only help grow polysilicon sales.

Today when a Kohl's department store in CA is covered in crystalline solar electric modules it meets about 20% of the building's energy needs. Put on thinfilm and it will meet 10% of the building's needs.

Roof space is limited - so efficiency really matters.

Now think of electric cars and plug-in hybrids charging up and the world's space heating needs moving from natural gas to electric heat pumps. There will be an explosion of electric demand... every sunny roof will want to be covered with the most efficient modules available.

And those modules, for the foreseeable future, are polysilicon.

Will Some Solar Companies Face a Cash Crunch?

The Chinese solar firms are growing 300% a year! That is an amazing growth rate. So of course they are using lots of cash. They realize that if the grow slowly they will not survive as firms. It is a race for market share and toward efficiencies of scale and cost reductions. If they don't find their price reductions they will also need to worry more about competing solar electric technologies.

So as investors we want them to grow as quickly as possible. But of course it is a tightrope.

My sense is that the Chinese government is very supportive of growth and gaining scale needed to dominate the world market.

Am I wrong in saying that the Chinese government will provide resources to companies that start falling off the tightrope?

Relax... seems like this may be a good period to buy solar stocks.

3 Aspects to Pricing Oil

Weak analysis... here's my analysis
1. we are running out of oil the cheap (easy to find, easy to refine, flows out of a well) stuff first.
2. demand and supply are very close - resulting in more firms wanting to hedge future prices
2. demand and supply are very close - resulting in speculators being able to influence near term pricing

Further Thoughts on Trina Solar and the Solar Space

Jack

I always enjoy reading your commentary and wished you had time to look into a few other areas of the market.

However I am not sure how picking solar stocks relate to your think tank idea? Or will it be a stock analyst think tank?

a U Michigan grad

PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW) Holdings

Hey Aquaculture - I believe you mean ground sourced heat pumps not geothermal. Speaking as a geologist, geothermal is hot water gysers etc. Ground sourced heat pumps use the stable temperature of the earth as a heat source (winter) or sink (summer) for a heat pump.

Solar Investors, Understand Silicon Supply

Readers of Photon International Magazine and their solar guru, Michael Rogol, know that he feels the same way. Mr. Rogol, does thorough analysis suggesting that: there will not be an oversupply of silicon for at least the next few years. Many dispute his claims.

Will LDK's New Company Create Competition for First Solar?

I wonder a little why do an AMAT line in China? It is a very automated line that makes large more difficult to ship roughly 10% - 12% efficient module. The modules are the size of the garage door on a one car garage. So larbor is a small component of module cost and shipping prices to the EU or US are high.

It only really makes sense if China itself and its neighbors are going to start doing utility scale open field arrays.

Further Musings on Solar Stocks

I recently ran some numbers on Biofuels vs Solar powered electric cars for the Midwest. The future of travel is renewable electric!

Good agricultural land produces 5 dry tons of biomass an acre per year, each dry ton can produce roughly 100 gallons of fuel per ton and if we assume cars can get 50 miles per gallon, than each acre of land could produce enough fuel to drive a car 25,000 miles per year.

About 250 kilowatts (kW) of solar electric modules would fill that same acre of land. In Wisconsin that 250 kW system would generate 300,000 kWh per year. An electric car will go at least 3 miles per kWh. An acre of solar modules could drive electric vehicles 900,000 miles per year.

Solar power is 36 times more efficient than biofuels at powering vehicles (even given Wisconsin solar resource). If we move to cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass solar power is 12 times better.

Solar power has other benefits, such as: solar power does not require land – roof tops are fine, solar module conversion efficiencies are being raised significantly (so less area would be needed per unit of energy produced), and electric cars and their batteries are in their infancy with efficiency gains remaining.

Meanwhile, biofuel crops must be harvested, transported and processed into the biofuel and sold to customers at biofuel stations. While solar power can go directly into a car’s battery with no moving parts.

Agriculture also means fertilization, tilling, soil loss, and irrigation. While solar power systems require very little maintenance and have a 30 to 40 year expected life.

Why the heck are we even pursuing biofuels???

Further Musings on Solar Stocks

Great insight on FSLR. What are you thoughts on LDK?

Contradictions in the Solar Market

You should take a look at Michael Rogol's article in the February edition of Photo International (the best source for in depth information in the solar industry). Rogol (google him - he has been right before and spends much of his time in China at solar factories) writes that there is no oversupply, spot silicon prices are heading toward $500, and the profit margins in the solar industry will remain above 30% through at least 2010.

So brighten up!