disdaniel

Solar's Dead Cat Bounce May Be Over

"one company offered a price of $0.69/kW"

It is hard to take an article seriously with errors/misprints like this! At best the author is off by a factor of 1000.

Economic and Technical Factors Create Winners and Losers in the Solar Cell Market

And I thought this guy was serious until I saw this:

"we may see prices drop from $1.85 per watt this year to less that $0.50 in two years."

Did he accidentially divide those figures by 2? or is he talking about something other than solar panels/power?

I don't see solar prices getting under $1 per watt...for the simple reason that manufacturers won't be able to keep up with the wall of demand (that would exist at that price).

Want Solar Panels? China Will Pick Up the Tab

Zach, the monthly savings from a 50kw install would be at best 1/2 (more likely 1/3) the $5k you project. (although in CA with 2009 state and fed incentives the cost to the business would also be less)

1 watt of solar generates ~ 2kwh/yr of power under optimal conditions (like the US southwest) so unless you are paying (or being paid) $0.50+/kwh you can't pay off a $5/w investment in less than five years.

I'm a big booster of solar, but w/o incentives people should not be looking for <10yr simple payback. Outside the SW, even with incentives <15yr simple payback will be hard to achieve.

BTW to a purchaser of solar panels a 10 yr payback is equivalent to a 10% no-risk bond yield.

Solar Targets Slashed as Demand Seen Dropping by 25%

I think these "solar" analysts are taking the results of 1 bad quarter, and projecting them out for the year.

"News" of writedowns on inventory and raw materials is to be expected given the precipitious unwinding of the silicon shortage (coincident with the credit crunch)--which is rippling through to finished panel prices. I think investors (and presumably these analysts work for investors) care more about how the company(s) will do over the next few years than the last few months...