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Concern about copper prices is not a recent phenomenon in the history of electrical generation and delivery. In 1879, Thomas Edison calculated that he would need to spend $18,000 to test his first ever electric light system around his lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
Concentrated solar power has run out of steam as PV prices plunge and transmission costs to CSP resources stranded out in the desert soar … or so many in the PV industry would have you believe. But CSP academics and advocates say the technology could be poised to perform a very fine balancing act on California’s grid.
Sometimes relying on financial results to paint a picture of the status of a company is more than adequate but this has rarely applied to Renewable Energy Corporation (REC). Though many Chinese PV manufacturers have gone down the fully-integrated business model, it was REC that was the first and it does it with a truly international manufacturing footprint. However, it has been a difficult path to tread and many ups and downs along the way. Feisty, determined, unlucky but pragmatic are words that come to mind when characterizing the last five years or so of its activities, events and business development. Colourful is a nice way to sum it up.
2011 was hardly a vintage year for thin-film solar in the US. Doubts about revenue-ready technologies based on copper, indium, gallium and selenide coalesced around the Solyndra bankruptcy in August. In December, First Solar decided it could not replicate its success in cadmium telluride, and shuttered its CIGS division.
A 30% cut in feed-in tariffs in Germany, after a record 7.5GW of new solar power generation installed in the country in 2011, is almost guaranteed based on the current regression system; double the level seen in 2010. Pressure is now on the German government to combat another year of record installations. This would require further changes in the EEG mechanism, as PV system price declines have been greater than the FiT reductions, boosting investor IRR and renewed interest in PV after a dismal first-half year level of adoption.
News that Norsk Hydro has sold its stake in CIGS thin-film wannabe, Ascent Solar, for US$4 million, to another investor, TFG Radiant Investment Group, may not help the struggling firm with sorely needed cash injections. Nevertheless, it would indicate a level of ‘trust’ in the firm to help ride out the current industry-wide challenges.
For the past few weeks all anyone in the UK solar industry has been talking about is feed-in tariff cuts and unexpected deadlines. In fact, since Government announced it would be reducing the incentive rates by more than 50% for household solar installations, almighty chaos has broken out. Friends of the Earth and two solar companies recently won their case against the unforeseen December 12 cut-off point – but is this really a “victory” for the UK solar industry, or have we been plonked between a rock and a hard place?
First Solar is holding a conference call tomorrow (Wednesday, December 14, 8:00am EST) to provide financial guidance for 2012. As we noted recently, the CdTe thin film leader is set to be the first of any major PV manufacturer to give guidance for next year, after what can only be described as a ‘challenging’ year for the whole industry.
Having switched off from much, if not all, of the political aspects to the demise of Solyndra, at last we are getting some solid confirmation of the real problems Solyndra was dealing with and getting more inline with the real issue, which was technology based.
It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Winston Churchill was referring to Russia, but his much-reused quote could just as easily apply to India’s nascent solar industry. Shrouded in secrecy, the state of play on the subcontinent is exciting as it is confusing.
