Centrotherm Photovoltaics has released its Q1’11 results, highlighting strong year-on-year revenue and bookings performance compared to Q1’10. Revenues grew year on year by 64.2% to €189.3 million, while new orders increased by 187.8% to €224.3 million. However, a more appropriate comparison comes by looking at quarter-on-quarter trends - in particular how Centrotherm’s PV book-to-bill is tracking – and in understanding trends within the industry driving these metrics.
Since the fast track review bombshell was dropped last week I have been thinking about what kind of implications this will have on the UK solar industry as a whole -- not just how it will affect the large-scale market. As we all know, one of the many things this country’s renewable energy industry lacks is experience, which is why it was so encouraging to see some of the world’s largest and most influential solar players step onto British soil.
Italy is faced with three very important considerations in determining how to power the nation: very modest domestic energy resources (it imports 87% of its electricity), resulting high electricity prices and abundance of sunlight. Consequently, over the last few years the Italian government has instituted a series of policies to promote solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment. Growing from just 60MW in 2007, Italy installed almost 2GW of solar PV last year - making it the second largest market in the world.
On March 3rd, 2011 a group of 22 Czech Senators filed a complaint with the Supreme Court against a new Czech PV law, which introduces a 26% tax on solar energy production. The Senators are afraid of the impact of solar arbitrages against the Czech Republic in the near future.
Alan King of Canadian Solar notes that while the extension of the U.S. Treasury's 1603 cash grant program has positive implications for the solar industry in 2011 and beyond, there's much work still to be done to increase PV's percentage of the country's overall energy portfolio.
In reporting its fourth-quarter earnings, Applied Materials (AMAT) announced net sales within its Energy & Environmental Services (EES) segment (which includes PV tool revenues) of US$606 million. Accordingly, Solarbuzz equipment supplier analysis reveals that AMAT has just reached a significant landmark: the first equipment supplier to reach and exceed the US$1 billion barrier for PV-specific trended ttm tool revenues. Certainly, this achievement offers comfort to tool suppliers that the PV segment has grown to an appreciable level. However, while every other PV tool supplier would welcome reaching this milestone, AMAT’s road taken to the US$1 billion PV revenue mark has been far from incident free.
At the end of October, the Czech government approved special measures against the ongoing solar boom in the country. Many of these measures are being abruptly negotiated and passed by the Czech Parliament so that they can take effect starting in January 2010. One of these measures will be a brand-new retroactive ‘solar tax’ imposed on producers of solar energy.
The Czech government announced recently that it was about to take special measures against the ongoing solar boom in the country. These measures are to limit the rapid construction of solar power plants, which would otherwise lead to a dramatic increase in the price of electricity in the future. One of these measures maybe a brand-new tax imposed on producers of solar power.
In contrast to the cloud of uncertainty prevailing over much of the thin-film equipment supply chain today, recent quarterly results within the c-Si segment from the likes of Centrotherm, Roth and Rau, Manz Automation, Applied Materials, and Amtech suggest sunny times lie ahead for these leading c-Si tool suppliers.
