Will the Buffalo Plant make sense now I was perplexed when 3 years ago SolarCity Corp. (NASDAQ: SCTY) announced that it was buying a marginal producer of solar cells and panels in USA and planned to set up a giant 1 gigawatt manufacturing plant. SolarCity at that time was flying high as it was growing […]
Panasonic halts Solar Panel Expansion Panasonic the iconic Japanese conglomerate which manufactures a mind boggling variety of products is facing the same fate as that of Sharp. Note Sharp which is amongst the top 5 global producer of solar panels announced a massive cutback of its solar manufacturing and retreat from Europe. This was done […]
Japan increases Solar Panel Efficiency Criteria to curtail foreign imports Asian countries like Japan and China routinely erect non explicit barriers to imports to protect their domestic firms. This is not isolated to solar panels but extends to other industries as well. The governments and the financial institutions exhibit a strong nationalistic streak to support […]
Sharp strikes a deal with Hon Hai Sharp Industries is in a very bad shape losing billions of dollars last year as its TV and solar panel business floundered in the face of heightened global competition from Korean and Chinese players. The high cost of its domestic manufacturing base and the rising yen led to […]
Sharp Solar Panels There have been hundreds of solar bankruptcies in the last couple of years as solar panel prices have gone down by almost 65% and ASPs have approached the COGs of the lowest cost solar panel manufacturers. However the big Japanese solar panel manufacturers have remained insulated from this wave of failures as […]