Guest Blog

Features, Guest Blog
August 21, 2012
By Richard Keiser
Company executives and analysts alike face a number of difficulties in answering this very important question. To reach the answer requires strong fundamentals in solar PV economics. This, however, is unfortunately not enough. The data necessary to answer the question are difficult to collect and even more difficult to structure and maintain. Further, the data are highly dynamic: US incentives change in structure, decrease or expire and electricity prices change in both magnitude and composition. All of these variables affect a market’s attractiveness, which itself can change substantially over time.
Features, Guest Blog
August 8, 2012
By Junko Movellan
By 2016, the federal 30% Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and the California Solar Initiative (CSI), the nation’s largest ratepayer funded program, will have expired. A key question lingering until then will be: “Can the US PV industry be weaned off government subsidies and therefore become self-sustaining?”
Features, Guest Blog
August 1, 2012
By Charles Wright & Bret Starr
The successful deployment of renewable energy, including solar, is critical for America’s future energy supply. Recently, a lease financing mechanism has been one of the most powerful drivers of solar power deployment in the US. Though solar leases have helped grow the industry, the authors contend that they come at an inflated and higher than intended cost to the US taxpayer compared to cash purchases. Further, if these inflated taxpayer costs become politicized, the industry may suffer another setback.
Features, Guest Blog
June 25, 2012
By Finlay Colville
For leading c-Si manufacturers, three issues have been influencing $/W cost metrics during the past couple of years: blended silicon cost, non-silicon process cost, and cell efficiency/module power.
Features, Guest Blog
June 8, 2012
By Stefan Pietzsch
The following article comments on the ongoing discussion of the grid parity issue. Although considerable movement can be observed in how PV is thought of in the industry, this article aims to point out the consequences of the necessary transition from incentive to non-incentive markets.
Features, Guest Blog
June 1, 2012
By Finlay Colville
To understand the potential impact of the preliminary US Department of Commerce ruling regarding import duties for c-Si modules that contain c-Si cells manufactured within China, it is necessary to clarify what the US market represents to leading tier 1 Chinese c-Si module suppliers (in absolute terms), as well as relative to the overall (global) market.
Features, Guest Blog
May 30, 2012
By Sam Wilkinson
The industry has now had a chance to take stock of the US Department of Commerce’s announcement that it will impose an import tariff on PV cells, or PV modules that contain cells, manufactured in China. The preliminary findings of the anti-dumping case, which was initiated in October 2011 when a group of PV manufacturers, led by Germany’s SolarWorld, filed a trade complaint, revealed that a tariff of approximately 31% would be levied against a specified group of the largest Chinese cell manufacturers and a rate of 249% against all other Chinese manufacturers. This was in addition to March’s introduction of less severe countervailing duties to negate the allegedly unfair subsidies that Chinese suppliers benefit from.
Features, Guest Blog
May 15, 2012
By Stefan Pietzsch
This article provides an analysis of global installations/demand and global production/supply according to regions and technologies. The evaluated timeframe includes years 2010 and 2011. An outlook for 2012 is also provided on a best-estimate basis. Specifically, the implications of module shipments in 2011 and 2012(e) are presented. This is in line with an analysis of production capacities, their utilization rates and the corresponding impact on global profit margins.
Features, Guest Blog
April 10, 2012
By Junko Movellan
In 1854, Matthew C. Perry - the Commander of the US Navy - compelled Japan to openup to its economy to foreign trade, after more than 200 years of a self-imposed isolation policy enforced by the ruling Tokugawa Shogun. The Commander arrived in Japan with four black-coloured US Navy warships, billowing black smoke. Later the term ‘Black Ships’ would be coined in Japan to symbolize any threat imposed by Western technology.
Features, Guest Blog
March 2, 2012
By Rob van der Meulen
How much carbon is emitted in producing a solar PV module and launching it on the market? This could be an important question which project developers, installers, investors, government agencies and end customers will ask solar PV manufacturers in the future.

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