SunRun, a home installation solar company, and PV Solar, an authority on California solar market data, announced that third-party-owned solar has eclipsed cash purchase as the preferred way to go solar in California. Also known as leasing or solar power service, third-party-owned solar represented approximately 59% of California's home solar market in Q3 2011 and 51% of the market year to date.
Effective as of October 12, Bruce Cousins has been appointed CEO and a board director of Carmanah Technologies, specialists in self-contained solar LED lighting and solar power solutions. Cousins replaces Ted Lattimore, CEO since 2007, who announced his resignation in May this year.
According to a new study by IMS Research, PV component profits are expected to fall by 70% year-on-year in Q4 2011. Furthermore, an examination of the polysilicon, wafer, cell, module and inverter industries led the research organization to conclude that the continuation of dropping prices in 2011 will cause gross margins for the whole PV industry to drop 17% to 12.4% in Q4.
Only a few weeks before releasing third-quarter 2011 financial results on October 27, 2011, inverter supplier, Power-One has reduced guidance for the quarter. Power-One expects revenue to be in the range of US$240-US$245 million, down from previous guidance of US$265 million-US$280 million. The company cited weaker than expected demand for lower revenue expectation. Sales in the second-quarter were US$180 million.
Task force leader, Christian Prischmann, from UIbrich, a specialist metals provider to the PV industry, was the recipient of the Standards Leadership award. The European Semi award went to Dr. Tibor Pavelka, CEO of Semilab Co. Ltd. who is a producer of metrology equipment for the characterization of semiconductor and PV materials.
Inventory writedowns and a weaker-than-expected recovery in demand for PV installations, specifically in Germany, are behind revised financial guidance by Phoenix Solar. The project developer warned of significant losses for the fiscal year 2011 and said it would be looking at its current business model in an effort to make changes and reduce costs to return to profitability in 2012.
UK based Foresight Group has signed a joint venture agreement with Quercus Renewable Energy Fund, a division of the Luxembourg-based Quercus Asset Selection, for the expansion of its investments in the Italian solar PV market. Quercus bought a 50% stake in Foresight’s Luxembourg holding Foresight Lux Co 2, which controls 40% of ForVEI, a company that was established by investors with help from Foresight, who were looking to buy interests in Italian PV plants.
SunEdison and KGAL recently finalized an agreement that sees KGAL buying 33MW of solar PV systems from SunEdison, which are located in Italy and Spain. Financial and specific project details were not released, but the recent acquisition comes after KGAL completed a 20MW purchase from SunEdison in Q2 2011.
Following the resignation of Greg Ye and Dafeng Shi from its board of directors, Daqo New Energy advised that it had selected Mingsong Liang and Shuming Zhao as the new independent directors for the company board. Liang is a co-managing partner of investment banking firm CLA Partners in China. He received his PhD degree in economics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a JD degree from New York University. Liang additionally serves on the audit committee for Daqo’s board.
Venture capital to the tune of US$350 million in 33 deals was handed out to solar-based firms in the third quarter of 2011, according to the latest roundup by Cleantech Group. Also of note was a reported US$812 million raised four China-based solar cell/module manufacturers via IPOs.
