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As my finger hovers over the panic button, my stock market-entwined retirement accounts shrinking as fast as the wattage output on a solar module at dusk and Sarah Palin's credibility, I'm still finding room for optimism. Or at least room for a few rambling news bits from Planet Photovoltaica.
While the U.S. Congress wrangles once again over whether to extend the solar/renewable investment tax credits (now tangled up with half-assed offshore drilling provisions) and the bookies in Vegas push the odds longer on whether the bill will pass this session and get signed into law by the Lame Duck in the Oval Office, tax breaks of a more local variety have been approved for none other than the darling of thin-film PV, First Solar.
The Toledo Blade reported Wednesday that the Wood County, OH, commissioners gave the nod to a 15-year, 100% property tax abatement for the company's Perrysburg Township complex. The deal will cushion the cost of First Solar's planned $136.5 million, 500,000-plus-square-foot expansion on the site--although not enough to offset the multibillion loss in market capitalization the company has suffered along with the rest of the publicly traded this week.
But First Solar isn't the only Toledo area solar PV company catching the Blade's attention. The paper ran a news feature on Sept. 7, headlined "Area firms poised to catch clean-tech investment wave," which mentions other local PV players like Xunlight and Solargystics, as well as a bit of history of the company once known as Solar Cells (AKA First Solar).
You know the Yogi Berra-ism, "cash is just as good as money"? Seems Applied Materials proved the old baseball wiseman's adage Wednesday with the announcement of a 6-cents-per-share dividend to be paid Dec. 4 to common-stock holders (as opposed to common stockholders, but I digress). Even if the company's shares dip below their current midteen price level, everyone holding AMAT paper will at least get those pennies.
Speaking of AMAT, the equipment company is cosponsoring, along with IEEE Santa Clara Valley EDS unit, a one-day seminar titled "PV Technology to Change the World" on October 2 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. (Since there isn't a Solar History Museum yet in Silicon, er, PValley, the institution honoring the people and gear that has run those zeroes and ones will have to fill in as host.) In addition to Applied's own ubiquitous solar guy, Charlie Gay, presenters include SunPower's Richard Swanson, NREL's Lawrence Kazmerski, Navigant Consulting's Paula Mints, Advent Solar's James Gee, and Signet Solar's Rajeeva Lahri. For registration info, click here.
Even though Lehman Brothers has filed for bankruptcy, some of their best assets--the human kind--have landed on their feet. Solar sector maven Vishal Shah, who on Monday sent out a gloomy pre-emptive email strike with his personal contact info and the obligatory-in-the-face-of-layoff "an honor and a pleasure to work with you" note, appears to have emerged relatively unscathed from his company's trials and perturbations.
He sent out an all-together more positive email on Wednesday, in which he said the following: "We are delighted to announce that Barclays has decided to purchase Lehman Brothers' U.S. broker dealer business and as such our team is back to normal business. Thank you for all your encouragement and best wishes over the past several days. We truly appreciate your support. Please assume for now that all Lehman Solar Research events such as our Global Tech Conference December 9-11 are continuing as previously scheduled."
Evidence of Vishal and his team's soft landing followed soon thereafter in the form of his "Solar Daily" and "Solar Energy" missives popping in my inbox. Congrats to the Shah of Solar and good luck in the daze ahead.
Speaking of a daze, one of my solar sources characterized the recent EU PVSEC in Valencia, Spain, as "overwhelming." He said there were "lots of discussions about how the industry is still 'go-go,'" but that many talks he had indicated "an emerging consensus" of "a wariness of oversupply in 2010." While he said that folks believe the price of polysilicon will no doubt drop, there was a rumor that Q-Cells is "paying unbelievably low prices for poly," in the less than $50 per kg range! He also mentioned that the Q-sters "had the party to go for," with "3500 people in a multistage club till 5 a.m."
He told me he left the Q-shindig at 1:30 a.m. Geez, what a wimp.
Finally, I ran across a beautiful photo of the International Space Station's acre o' solar (panels, that is) array, taken by the crew of Expedition 17 last month. Thanks to NASA for use of the image below.
