United Microelectronics (UMC) is the world’s second largest publicly listed semiconductor foundry. UMC is located in Taiwan like TSMC (TSM) and gets most of its revenues by producing semiconductor chips for mostly fabless customers based in the USA such as Mediatek, Broadcom and others. UMC was founded in 1980 and was one of the first companies […]
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 […]
The news report on Department of Energy informing of Abound Solar demise surprised many people and led to the usual media excitement of Obama’s faulty loans to cleantech companies. However to any solar industry follower it was an expected death and the only surprise was that it took so long. Chinese solar crystalline panel prices […]
Solar power in the last few years has seen mainstream analysts, consultants and market research firms go massively wrong as they fail to understand the solar energy market. The massive decrease in prices of solar panels has led to a strong growth in demand driven by elasticity. Every year, analysts have underestimated demand for solar […]
The Taiwanese Solar Industry has become the 2nd largest in the world following in the footsteps of China.Taiwanese Solar Industry has a longer history than the Chinese with Solar Cell Makers Motech and E-Ton establishing themselves globally way back in 2006.However the steep fall in solar panel prices following the Lehman crisis had led to losses for these companies as the Chinese companies surged ahead using their low cost manufacturing.The crisis also led to the emergence of newer Taiwanese companies like Gintech,Neo Solar which are growing at extremely fast rates.Note Taiwan is a hub of semiconductor manufacturing with leading companies like TSMC,AUO,UMC,HTC etc.Solar Industry uses many of the same technologies,raw materials and techniques common to semiconductor and Display Panels Production giving Taiwanese firms a natural advantage.Taiwan has been predominantly present in the crystalline Solar Cell part of the supply chain and lacks a big manufacturer of polysilicon ( though a facility has been started).The lack of vertical integration has also made the costs of the Taiwanese industry higher.The entry of large companies like AUO,TSMC has further increased the competition in the Taiwanese market.Note Taiwan’s government has also promoted the use of solar energy in the country through the use of a Feed in Tariff program.
While the major solar energy companies are expanding rapidly as the solar industry grew by almost 150% in 2010,a number of non-solar MNCs have gotten into this sector.The massive growth of solar industry which has been vastly underestimated by policymaker and analysts have not been hidden from these giant companies.While a number of these companies have been present since a long time,some are entering the growing solar energy field for the first time.Some like BP have lost the plot and become minor players despite being top companies a few years ago.Shell has totally left the solar energy field selling its plant to Motech.Asian conglomerates and semiconductor companies have been the most aggressive in entering this area.Chemical companies too have shown interest in building polysilicon plants which build on their core competence.Others have entered the Solar Thermal Energy Field which reinforces their traditional strengths in building power plants and EPC work.Here is list of the top non-solar companies entering the solar sector.