Manufacturing
May 31, 2013
Indian Industry Performance History repeats itself, so is the case with Indian economy. The recent IIP numbers released reveal a poor picture about Indian Industry Performance. […]
April 19, 2013
ACC Cement ACC as a company needs no introduction of its own. It’s a well known big player in the cement industry. The current share price […]
April 4, 2013
Micro Small and Medium Enterprise The Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) sector in India is quintessential to achieving the targeted growth rate of our nation. […]
April 2, 2013
The Indian government recently published its industrial output report which showed poor performance, as compared to the previous year. The industrial output fell by 0.6% in […]
March 28, 2013
The Indian economy was primarily known to be an agrarian economy with majority of GDP coming from Agriculture and majority workforce dependent on Agriculture. Over the […]
February 25, 2013
Global Crisis & India Currently the global economy is undergoing the state of crisis. The recent eurozone second recession coupled with very slow growth in US […]
February 14, 2013
The Indian Economy in 1947-91 The Indian economy was primarily an agrarian economy post independence era, with a major chunk of its GDP coming from Agriculture […]
June 25, 2012
The Polysilicon Companies have seen an amazing amount of profits in the period between 2008-2011 end as prices of polysilicon shot up to $400/kg which resulted […]
June 21, 2012
Updated: 7/06/2016 Japanese Solar Panel companies Sharp, Kyocera, Panasonic-Sanyo, Mitsubishi were the top solar panel producers in the world. Solar Energy in Japan has a long […]
March 29, 2012
This may be a dramatic statement to make about the world's most valued solar company but there are several reasons which I will explain below to illustrate this point. Note the solar industry is in a league of its own in the astonishing drop it solar panel prices (80% price drop over the last 3-4 years) and the rapid increase in demand (60% CAGR over the last 10 years).So the comparison and analysis by your usual stock hacks on financial portals like Motley and Seeking Alpha is way off the mark. First Solar had the worst 2 quarters in its history in 2011 as it went from a record breaking profit company into the red. Many issues which were hidden by its past success came out in the open and some of them are life threatening. Here are these problems
February 29, 2012
China's solar panel companies can used their government banks backing as a major competitive advantage. Just like their telecom equipment companies ZTE and Huawei they can use the debt to win contracts over suppliers from India and elsewhere. Note there is a already a major controversy in the USA over the subsidies and support given to Chinese solar companies and has led to a so called solar trade war between the two . Even USA has used its EXIM Bank to provides millions of dollars in financing of solar farms which are supplied by US Solar Panel producers First Solar. Chinese companies Goldpoly are using the strong billion dollar lines to build solar projects in the Europe as well
February 27, 2012
The falling prices of solar panels has made almost impossible thought of solar electricity prices possible today. In a state auction of solar projects ,a small company Alex Green Energy bid only 14c/ KwH to win the auction. The price is lower than that seen in the Indian federal subsidy auction JNNSM. Note Rs 7/ Kwh that was bid is close to the Rs 6-7/ Kwh retail electricity prices in most cities in India.Note in the first phase of auction the lowest price was more than 50% higher at Rs 10/ kwh
February 25, 2012
India's Solar PowerIndustry is starting to see some M&A with both domestic and foreign companies buying smaller firms. While the biggest M&A story is that of Tata Power acquiring the stake in Tata BP Solar, other firms without any grounding in the energy industry are too getting in. Now a Coal Equipment and EPC company Tecpro is getting into the solar energy business by acquiring a small solar lighting and heating company Eversun.Tecpro Systemsis primarily focused on the Power Sector Space.It is a leader in the ash handling and material handling systems and is currently diversifying into becoming a turnkey provider in this segment.Like other infrastructure players it has seen amazing growth in the last 3 years at around 70%+.The growth has been fantastic both on the topline and the bottomline.The 2300 crore Order book provides some comfort over the next year’s revenues or so.The Power Sector in India particularly the Thermal Power Plants are expected to see an explosive growth period.Steel and Cement sectors are also growing strongly.With Tecpro Systems focusing on these 3 segments,it should be able to maintain a good growth trajectory in the future years as well
February 25, 2012
The Indian Solar Power Industry is starting to see some Solar M&A activity pick up as the sector starts maturing. The Indian Solar Energy Industry starting picking up pace in 2009 with the advent of the first phase of the solar federal subsidy which envisaged putting up 20 GW by 2022 (a figure which I think is too low btw) . A large number of companies entered the fray many of which were small . These companies hoped to profit from selling the licenses rather than being serious players. Many of these companies could not do so as the reverse auction process was quite competitive. A large number of companies also got started to take advantage of individual state subsidies from governments in Gujarat.
February 24, 2012
Solarworld which is the biggest solar panel company from Germany lost marketshare to the Chinese companiees in 2011 . The company which has been at the forefront of leading anti-dumping charges against import of Chinese made solar modules into the USA, lost substantial amounts of money. Solarworld had earlier closed its panel making facility in California. The company sold lesser number of solar panels in 2011 compared to 2010 despite the global solar market increasing by 30-40% . With only around 800 MW of shipments , Solarworld has only 3-4% of the global marketshare compared to 10% for bigger Chinese rivals.
February 23, 2012
China which is the world's largest provider of solar panels made from crystalline silicon is seeing a large number of smaller polysilicon companies go bankrupt or stop production. The reason is that for many of the smaller companies the price of polysilicon is $25-30/kg while the costs are $40-50/kg .This means that the smaller companies are making massive losses with the production of each kg of polysilicon. Note Polysilicon is a commodity industry like the memory industry and goes through periodic ups and downs when prices can go much below costs. In recent years a large number of companies set up polysilicon plants to benefit from the massive growth in the solar panel demand in Europe. However a massive glut in 2011 led the prices to fall across the supply chain of silicon solar panels. Poly prices fell from a high of $100/kg to $25/kg a drop of almost 75% in one year. This has made many of the smaller poly plants in China stop production as the price is below variable costs. The bigger producers like GCL , Renesola and Daqo have lower costs at around $25-30/kg which means they are breaking even . However for smaller companies the situation is dire as massive capacity expansion by the top polysilicon producers will continue in 2012 keeping prices at around the same level.
February 16, 2012
While US Solar Installers are making Hay while the Chinese Solar Panel Companies flood the world with super cheap solar modules,Western solar manufacturers are being killed at an astounding rate.The second biggest thin film solar panel company in the US United Solar Ovonic has gone belly up.The company was fighting a losing batter as the more efficient crystalline solar panel prices went below its production cost.The company had tried to fight in a the niche of BIPV solar panel market but could not survice. After First Solar,Energy Conversion Devices seemed the mostly likely viable company in Thin Film Technology.After a few quarters of profits in 2008,the company went into the red as its flexible a-Si modules failed to cut costs as fast as others.It has been shutting factories in the US and shifting to low cost locations.
February 14, 2012
The US Import Sanctions on Chinese Solar Panel imports will become a non-event soon as Chinese solar panel producers are easily short circuting the sanctions. They are using a number of strategies to protect themselves from the upcoming duties and anti-dumping measures. This shows that globalization makes the use of specific duties on a nation quite useless and only benefits the lawyers . The reason is that private companies are much more faster and nimble compared to the slow moving bureaucrats .
February 13, 2012
However it has now thankfully put its plan on hold of spending another 520 million euros on solar energy. The company has already wrote down $1 billion in solar after the valuations of Ersol and Aleo have crashed from the time it bought it. Note most Western solar companies are going bankrupt as they can't compete with the 80c/watt solar panel prices. Stalwarts Q-Cells are defaulting on the debt payments while according to Total CEO, Sunpower would have been bankrupt if they had not bought it. Even the biggest US Solar Panel Company First Solar has been ravaged by the price war. Bosch has bravely said that it would continue to remain in the solar panel market while it makes more sense for them now to make an exit and concentrate on their core competencies. It can realistically never hope to get into the top 20 solar panel suppliers and stop spending good money after the bad.
February 8, 2012
California which has the largest number of solar installations in the USA and is the capital of solar energy in North America is seeing a rapid exit of solar panel manufacturers. First it was Solarworld which closed a solar module manufacturing facility. Now Sanyo Solar Panels will stopped being made in the state as well as Panasonic consolidates manufacturing in Asia. Note cheap Chinese solar panels have made western manufacturers exit the solar industry and their have been a number of media grabbing bankruptcies as well. Western solar companies as well as Japanese solar panel makers have been shutting down in droves now .
February 6, 2012
China which is home to the biggest solar industry in the world and most of the top solar panel manufacturers has decided to lower subsidy in 2012. Note China did not pass a Feed in Tariff Law for a long time as prices of solar energy remained high. But after a massive crash in solar prices and energy in 2011 it passed a FIT law in late 2011 to take advantage. This resulted in a big jump resulting in China becoming one of the top 5 markets in 2011 . Now China is set to become one of the top 3 markets in 2012 if not the biggest . This is due to the fact that other European solar panel markets are rapidly reducing subsidies and China needs to support its solar companies many of which are effectively insolvent like LDK.
February 4, 2012
We would like to incorporate BIPV solar tiles or roofing when we build - so we are trying to find out a this point what products are now available in Australia and what our choices would be and the range of prices each would be in ...just to give us a starting point as we begin to pull all the ideas together ?
We'd really appreciate any information you can send our way that would help us achieving this - the brand/type of BIVP we can use, the best inverter and battery you'd recommend - obviously it will depend on where we are and how much sun our roof will get - but we plan to make it as much as is possible as we'd like to be able create 100% of our power needs or if not at least 80 % . At present as a guide my household uses approx 10.7 khw of power a day - so that will give you an idea of how many solar tiles we'd need perhaps ...if the sun was at its optimum ? We hope to be building on a reasonably sunny block between Ferntree Gully and Belgrave on the high side near bushland ...beginning in a couple of months or so
January 31, 2012
I receive a lot of inquiries regarding how to enter the solar industry . Note the Solar Business is one of the fastest growing industries in […]
January 31, 2012
Solar Power in India has taken off under the ambitious JNNSM government subsidy scheme with almost 400 MW of Solar Capacity installed in 2011 . With various states like Gujarat, Karnataka coming up with aggressive solar subsidy schemes on their own as well, solar power capacity in India should surge by around 1 GW in 2012. This has made India one of the fastest growing solar markets in the globe right now.
January 30, 2012
Finding accurate Solar insolation data is a difficult problem faced in most countries except Europe and USA. The reason is that there is no history of solar radiation data in most countries as solar power is a relatively new technology. Most of the solar developers rely on data from NASA, DOE and European agencies which focus mostly on their domestic geography. This leads to faulty and inaccurate solar radiation data for other places which are seeing massive solar boom due to falling solar panel prices. India which installed 400 MW of solar power plants in 2011 and should see another 1000 MW in 2012 faces this problems also. There are no devices to record solar insolation in India with data coming from outside.
January 27, 2012
The Chinese Dominance of the Solar Industry in the last 2 years have seen numerous Western companies go bust . This has accelerated sharply in 2011 with companies like Evergreen Solar,Spectrawatt, Solar Millenium, Solon, Photowatt etc. either gone for good or in various stages of bankruptcy. Other US Solar Panel Manufacturers like First Solar, Sunpower have fired thousands and some are continuing with large losses. European Solar Companies are the worst off given their high cost structure and lack of differentiation. Solland Solar recently killed its solar module line while some like Schott have killed their solar wafer lines.
January 27, 2012
So what are the criterea for staying alive in 2012
a) Government Support in Some Form - Most of the Tier 1 Chinese Solar Companies will fall into this bracket. However given that there are so many you would have to look at the biggest like Suntech, LDK, Yingli for survival in any case. LDK is a BANKRUPT COMPANY ,the only reason it continue to produce a solar panel is because of the Chinese government support
b) Low Cost - Though seems like an obvious idea, there are still companies existing which have high costs like Q-Cells, REC. You just can't invest in them given that even low cost is a necessary though not sufficient condition to survive
c) Branding - Very necessary to get financing for solar projects as without a brand you are not bankable and will have to sell at a 10% discount in a market which is already selling at below cost
January 19, 2012
Solar Jobs have been cut in the tens of thousands this year by a number of European Solar Companies including marquee names such as REC, Q-Cells, Solarworld ,SMA Solar besides many of the smaller names. Some of the solar companies like Solon have completely shut down. 5000 solar companies have downed shutters in 2011 according to German association BSW. This is despite global solar demand in 2011 increasing by around 30-40% compared to 2010. The reason is that massive overcapacity has been created in China and other parts of Asia. Backed by cheap loans and massive subsidies, around 50 GW of solar panel capacity has been created . This has led to a crashing of solar panel prices by 60% which has decimated the higher cost companies in Europe.
January 19, 2012
There is urgent need to reduce the solar capacity addition in Germany because
a) It is requiring almost half of the $21 billion renewable energy subsidies in 2011 while generating 3% of the total power
b) Too much solar power while put pressure on the power grid as at the peak afternoon hours solar can generate almost 10% of Germany's power requirement which means shutting down other sources
c) German Solar Panel producers have stopped benefiting from German domestic growth. Most solar companies in Germany have been decimated by Chinese competition and around 20000 solar jobs and 5000 companies have shut down.
January 18, 2012
Solar Insolvency Protection is a new financial product that is going to be introduced by Munich Re the giant German reinsurer. Note Munich Re has been at the forefront of introducing insurance products for solar energy. It was one of the first companies to provide an insurance against the 25 year solar warranty which is generally given by solar companies for their solar modules.It has introduced it for LDK Solar Panels before moving onto other companies as well.