Pricewaterhouse Coopers PricewaterhouseCoopers also known as PwC is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. PwC is the world’s largest professional services firm and is also the largest of the “Big Four” accountancy firms measured by 2012 revenues. The company has its presence over 771 cities spread across 158 countries and currently […]
Solar Products in India I have repeated numerous times that the Indian solar industry represents one of the biggest investing opportunities in the 21st century. However most of the opportunities are being missed as most solar companies concentrate their energies on building big solar farms using solar panels. However there are a number of other […]
The increasing amounts of Wind Energy and Solar Energy will require elements of a Smart Grid.China’s electricty capacity is going to double in the next 5 years to around 1500 GW from 850-900 GW at present.This will require a huge increase in transmission capacity creating a huge market for electricity equipment giants like Siemens,ABB,Areva and Alstom.China also has the opputunity of creating a a Smart Grid as it builds Transmission Capacity form Scratch.Almost $100 Billion is going to be spent over the next 5 years attracting even IT firms like IBM and Cisco.IBM has already tied up with Chinese cities to roll out a pilot program.Note Smart Grid Technologies are still in their infancy.Chinese investment in Smart Grid will allow development of these technologies giving a huge boost to companies winning Smart Grid Projects in China.The Chinese Market despite its size is a highly competitive market with local companies competing mainly on price.Local companies that are benefiting from the Grid Investment are
Solar Frontier is a subsidiary of Showa Shell Sekiyu and is listed on the Japanese Stock Exchange.The Company has big plans for the Solar Energy Market planning to increase its capacity by more than 10 times in 2011 to around 1 Gw in total.All its 3 plants are located in Miyazaki in Japan and uses previous plasma plant of Hitachi.Solar Frontier claims 11.5% efficiency for its CIS modules which are expected to go upto 14% by 2014.The Company is spending around $1 Billion in Capex for building the 1 GW capacity implying roughly $1 capex/watt which is not exactly cheap though not very expensive either.Note Thin Film Competition is hotting up with Saint Gobain-Hyundai,TSMC,Miasole,Oerlikon Solar,Sharp,Nanosolar all making plans for huge capacity expansion in the next couple of years.Solar Frontier has signed some small deals for supplying 1-3 MW in Thailand,Japan and Australia Recently.However the cost structure of the company is not known till now just like Sharp.While Solar Frontier looks good on the capacity and partnerships front,it has still to prove itself on costs to really push the Chinese Solar Companies which are dominating the Solar Scene right now with their low cost polysilicon panel production.Note 60% of the Solar Panel Production in Q210 was estimated to be done by Chinese based manufacturers.
.Cisco has said that the Smart Grid Opportunity will be 100-1000 times bigger than the Internet as the Electricity Infrastructure of the world is modernized.Pike Research estimates expenditure on Smart Grid to become $200 Billion by 2015 from $20 Billion at Present.Already large sums of money from the ARRA Stimulus are going to be spend by US Utilities on Smart Grid Projects.There are a host of Software and Hardware Companies in the Race for the Smart Grid Pie.IBM,Google,Microsoft,Honeywell,GE,SAP,Oracle every big company wants a piece of this Multi Billion Dollar Pie.However Cisco is the one putting serious money and effort into its Smart Grid Initiative.
For some time I have noticed that European Union has been coming down very strong on anti trust actions and price fixing against technology companies . These fines usually consist of a large monetary fine plus some provisions to prevent such actions in the future.However US and Asia have not been involved in such big […]