disdaniel

SunPower Plans for Made-in-America Products

Smart move.

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.

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...

Ideas For a Post Inauguration Obama Bounce

"The sun doesn't shine 100% of the time."

Is the person writing this post an idiot?

The sun really does shines 100% of the time. Nimwits! A particular location on the earth spins away from the sun for about 12 hours (on average) each day, but that is hardly the sun's fault.

Polysilicon Prices Head for Steep Fall: Good News for Solar?

"news" reports that focus on spot poly prices are the tail wagging the dog.

The spot price getting closer to the contract price is healthy for poly, not a sign of weakness.
Supply and demand are related, but a supply problem being resolved IS different than a demand problem.
Spot price over 2x contract price means poly had supply problems. If spot price gets down to 1/2 contract price...then we might have a demand problem.