Solar Equipment
August 26, 2013
Solar Equipment Spending to further fall in 2013 Solar equipment spending fell off a cliff in 2012 after a record 2011. Spending on equipment used to […]
June 24, 2013
OCI & Hanwha to remain the serious Contenders Major Korean conglomerates such as Samung, Hyundai and Hanwha had made massive investments in renewable energy spurred on […]
June 20, 2013
Cheap money and over-investment has led to a catastrophic overcapacity in the solar panel industry leading to solar panel prices falling by more than 80% in […]
May 30, 2013
Capital Investment in Solar Industry projected at $2.3 billion in 2013 The solar industry has been sick in the last couple of years as massive over-investment […]
May 28, 2013
The Indian solar manufacturing industry is running on fumes with 10% capacity utilization. Even the bigger capacity players like Tata Power, Indosolar and Moser Baer are […]
March 6, 2013
China has been bristling against the hostility in solar trade from major partners such as US and Europe. The dominance of the Chinese solar panel industry […]
February 7, 2013
Su-kam to acquire a solar panel company The Indian solar panel manufacturers are a sorry lot as global overcapacity in solar modules has meant that they […]
January 25, 2013
Solar Equipment To solar watchers, this headline provides no new information as solar equipment companies have not only reported drastic revenue decreases, but some have also […]
November 23, 2012
Bad Times – Solar Equipment Industry To say that Solar Equipment Suppliers to solar panel makers like Trina, Yingli are going through bad times is an […]
November 8, 2012
Global Solar Job Massacre We on greenworldinestor, have been closely following the solar industry downturn which seems that it will never end. While solar job cuts […]
October 25, 2012
Solar Crisis hits Inverter Business Solar Panel Bankruptcies have been dime a dozen in the last couple of years, as a massive overcapacity led to price […]
July 31, 2012
The biggest Chinese solar panel producers like Sunech, Trina ,Yingli and Canadian Solar have come out strongly against the recent filing of a complaint of dumping […]
July 18, 2012
75% of Solar Panel Companies to Disappear in 5 years as a Common Industry Technology Roadmap appears
Solarbuzz which is one of the solar industry’s leading research agencies has come out with some predictions on the Solar Industry for the next 5 years. […]
July 17, 2012
Bankrupt Green Energy Companies These days the only thing you hear about in the Green Industry is Bankruptcy or companies on the verge of insolvency. The […]
July 10, 2012
Solar Gold Rush The Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which is set to announce a solar subsidy policy soon, is seeing a massive gold rush. Note […]
June 29, 2012
Solar Equipment Companies Saw a massive increase in revenues and profits as Asian companies led by the Chinese built a huge amount of solar cell, wafer […]
June 5, 2012
The US imposition of duties on Solar panel imports from China has raised the hackles of the Chinese Government which considers the solar industry to be […]
January 18, 2012
First Solar the Big Daddy of Thin FIlm Solar Panels too is under pressure and if not for the DOE funded solar farms in California would have been facing a huge global marketshare loss. There are only a few thin film companies that can hope to compete . Those that can have big parents with massive balance sheets like Solar Frontier backed by Showa and Shell, Sharp ,TSMC and others . VC and PE backed startups have a snowball chance in hell of surviving because they need to get their costs to 50c/watt an impossibility even for First Solar leave alone poor startups.
July 6, 2011
Solar Air Conditioner or Solar AC refers to an Air Conditioner where the energy for the air conditioning is dervided from solar energy.There are 3 types of Solar Air Conditioning namely passive solar AC,solar thermal and PV Solar Air conditioning.Solar Air Conditioners though a niche area are expected to grow strongly in the future in hot areas like India where Air Conditioning is consuming huge amounts of energy and where there is sufficient sun light to generate big amounts of solar energy as well.
July 3, 2011
Solar Products in India are set to grow at a tremendous rate in the future driven by the declining costs of solar power and the increasing price of fossil fuel energy products.Already we are seeing massive power cuts across the country due to shortage of coal.Beside this,the prices of electricity has increased tremendously as well and is approaching seriously high levels due the increasing price of coal and gas.This has made it inevitable that people will turn towards solar products which are not only becoming cheaper but are also greener.Solar Products comes in a wide variety and range from almost all electrical home appliances.You can solar air conditioners,solar fans,solar toys etc.The main uses of solar products however are those in generating electric power .These are known as solar panels and poised to become ubiquitous in the days to come.The day is not far off when almost every house in India will have solar panels on their roofs to generate cheap electric power.Beside this solar lanterns are already replacing expensive and polluting kerosene lamps in poor households.Solar Lighting is also increasing particularly in those areas where the electricity power grid cannot reach.Solar Heaters have become extremely popular in southern India as solar water heaters are much cheaper than normal electricity powered water heaters.Though Solar Cookers have not caught on in a big way,there are also very cost effective and clean.Below is listed out the main solar products sold in India along-with their suppliers
July 1, 2011
Solar Thin Film Companies are coming under siege again due to the relentless fall in the prices of crystalline silicon panels in recent months of 2011.Note large number of thin film companies went bankrupt the last time polysilicon prices fell off a cliff in the post Lehman crisis period in 2008 end.Applied Material the biggest solar equipment company killed off its SunFab Division which has a large customer list.Applied Materials saw the writing on the wall and concentrated its efforts on crystalline silicon equipment buying HCT Shaping and Baccini to become a billion dollar supplier of solar equipment.A number of weaker hands in solar thin film went out of business.However the prodigious growth in solar demand in 2010 saw large investments being made again.The biggest failure (not complete yet) seems to be the DOE and Obama darling CIGs startup Solyndra which has already used up a billion dollars with nothing much to write home about .Now Republicans are investigating whether the more than $500 million US government loan was done improperly.Abound Solar a CdTe startup has also managed a $400 million loan and I doubt whether it will manage to ever pay off the loan given that the lowest cost manufacturer of solar panels First Solar itself is under pressure from sharp cost reduction by integrated solar panel companies like Trina Solar.
April 11, 2011
Meyer Burger (MBTN.S) the 6th largest supplier of solar equipment in the world jumped up 2 places by acquiring the 7th largest global solar equipment manufacturer Roth & Rau of Germany for a little over $500 million.The combined company will have revenues of over $900 million overtaking another Germany company Centrotherm with $825 million in revs.Note Applied Materials continues to be the market leader in the solar equipment market with $1.5 billion in solar equipment revenues just like it is the leader in the semiconductor equipment market.Note while European solar module producers have seen their marketshare and revenues crumbling in the face of the Chinese onslaught , there domination of the solar equipment continues. European Solar Companies had found things going tough in 2009 as the solar market changed radically with the Lehman crisis.As the prices of the raw material Polysilicon crashed and Chinese competition increased,these companies started bleeding red ink in a prodigious manner.The high cost structure of these companies with factories in Europe stood naked against the competition.With high debt loads,there was a high chance that these companies would go bankrupt.Most of them like Q-Cells,REC started to move manufacturing to Asia while Solarworld moved to Europe.