Solar stocks in Chinese companies have been under increased pressure following reports that SolarWorld’s anti-dumping case against Chinese OEMs is progressing to the European Union. Jefferies has predicted that if the anti-dumping verdict is passed, it will be negative towards Chinese cell/module suppliers, positive to Taiwanese cell suppliers, SunPower and First Solar and neutral to poly and wafer suppliers (assuming the scope is largely limited to cells as in the US).
As US President Barack Obama embarked on what could be his final year in office, he pledged in his State of the Union address to increase energy standards. Amid cries from political activists accusing him of having the least active climate change legislation in recent years, on Tuesday, a partnership between the Department of Interior and the Department of Energy intends to put all the vehement concerns to rest.
Terna responsible for developing the national electricity transmission grid has received authorization to shut off distributed generation systems in case of emergency.
Having broken ground last year, with an investment of US$6.6 million from the coffers of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade Aid Programme, Tonga’s first and largest grid-connected solar park is to go online on July 24. The new solar power plant at the Popua Power Station, south-east of the island capital of Nuku’alofa on Tongatapu will have a total capacity of 1.3MW and will be supplied with Conergy Australia’s mounting systems.
Subsequent to Italy’s energy agency Gestore dei Servizi Energetici's (GSE) 45 days notice to the domestic solar industry until the implementation of the revised Conto Energia, analysis from IMS Research has revealed that the country will have a severely reduced budget for incentive schemes. The new scheme was intended to be accompanied by an additional annual budget of €700m and is due to end when the total annual cost reached €6.7 billion. However, due to a large number of installations having been completed in the first half of this year in order to benefit from the previous Conto Energia’s generous rates, these have not yet been included in the official GSE statistics.
Concerns of Chinese retaliation against US countervailing and anti-dumping duties have manifested themselves in a complaint filed to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. MOFCOM has today released a statement regarding an application requesting an anti-dumping investigation into US and South Korean exports to China. On behalf of the Chinese solar industry, Jiangsu Silicon Technology Development, LDK Solar, Luoyan Sino-Silicon high-tech and New Energy, filed the complaint on July 2. Interested parties have 20 days to respond to the complaint.
Further to Clenergy’s large-scale ground-mounted PV project being developed by a utility in Dunhuang, the company has announced that it has signed a 15MW contract with an unnamed client towards a project covering four factories located across China. The installations will be in Tianjing Ninghe Modern Industry area Hengshui Economic Development Zone and Haikou National Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone. The company will provide a customized PV-ezRack SolarRoof mounting solution, as previously exhibited on a 40MW solar power station developed in Jiayuguan last month.
TetraSun has disclosed that its monocrystalline Czochralski (Cz) silicon is now production-ready through the successful completion of its SunShot Initiative PV Incubator grant from the US Department of Energy (DoE). Alongside the DoE grant, since its founding in 2009, TetraSun has raised US$12 million from equity and strategic customer investors. TetraSun's technology turns monocrystalline Cz wafers into high-efficiency cells, in what the company claims as innovative and cost-effective, by making a surface passivation and replacing silver by copper.
Effective August 27, 2012, the revised Italian feed-in tariff programme Conto Energia V has made the registration of all PV systems compulsory. EuPD Research claims this will induce an artificial limitation to the market as well as incur a supplementary cost of €3/kWh.
It appears concerns over market consolidation and the changing incentive landscape affected Intersolar North America more than many had hoped. Around 22,000 visitors and 850 exhibitors were expected at this month’s exhibition in San Francisco. However, the reality was closer to 18,000 visitors and 757 exhibitors, compared to last year’s 20,000 visitors and 839 exhibiting solar companies which was a 30% growth from 2010. On a more positive note, Intersolar claims that approximately two thirds of the exhibition space has already been booked for the 2013 exhibition and conference.
