With 2009 fading into the past, recorded data will explain how solar power stocks tolerated a difficult year. This is old news and not really earth rattling, since the high foreheads on Wall Street literally kicked the stuffing out of this segment for a good part of the year.
The pundits figured the bad news was going to simply carry forward into 2010, forecasting a pasting being taken by roughly half the solar energy businesses around the globe. The thinking [a term used loosely] on Wall Street appears to be somewhat like this:
Experts initially stated there was an enormous saturation of polysilicon – the raw product forming part of the silicon based Photovoltaic cell panel. This was just part of the story and solar panels sold at increasing rates quickly taking a bite out of the additional supply.
Experts made another bad call when analyzing the novel thin filmed solar panel technology everyone was raving about. They believed businesses that manufactured thin film solar were facing ruin due to the oversupply of polysilicon that would continue to allow for the under pricing of photovoltaic panels making it troublesome for thin filmed solar companies to thrive. This narrow minded forecast was one for the books. Many of these business authorities may well be choking on crow right about now.
With that said, here is a glimpse at the actual solar power division.
[It should be noted that some solar power companies will fail and others will lose money heading into the future but that is a truism of any competitive and active sector].
The markets for electricity producing solar photovoltaic cells are rising quickly. We will not see what happened twenty or thirty years ago in this sector when four hundred solar panel producers was reduced to just five as the marketplace for this technology just tanked.
The solar power industry only requires a slight adjustment in opinion.
Solar Industry Bosses Speak Out
During the Solar power International 2009 conference set in Anaheim, California last fall, the leadership of solar power companies added their voices regarding the condition of their field and their insight into the future.
Ron Kenedi, vice president of solar Energy Solutions Group at Sharp Corporation is high on the coming year 2010 stating that they are witnessing expansion in solar overall and it began in the previous few months. There has been development in the residential segment with new methods of financing projects. Grid utility scale operations are in startup phases and conventional solar is also taking off. Every sector in the solar power field is enjoying a surge in growth.
Zhengong Shi, Chairmen and CEO of Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. Is so high regarding the future of solar in the US market that his company will be constructing a new production facility in the US. In 2009, the Spanish market made up about one half of the world market for solar. Aside from the Spanish marketplace, every other industry tied market expanded at fifty to one hundred percent and this is seen as a very fruitful indicator. He says his company is thrilled with the US marketplace due in part to the Obama government’s openness and support for renewable energy growth and solar power and the added understanding the general population seems to have for alternate energy supply. They are confident their market share will carry on expanding throughout the US.
However, one industry exec, Jerry Wolfe, the CEO of private enterprise GroSolar, hit the nail on the head when discussing the real problem preventing solar power from opening up traditional markets. He says the technology is here and constantly getting better with residential and commercial / industrial building being less costly with solar power units than when they are powered by just the utility. People cannot figure this out so the industry’s biggest problem is the need for a societal shift in thinking and recognition of solar, this he believes is their biggest obstacle.
Turning on to Solar Power
Reminiscent of IBM’s Chairman discussing the novel computer idea in 1943 when he stated that there was a world market for maybe five computers. Evidently, we should not be discussing new tech promises with current technologists. Discuss solar power with a fossil fuel producer or the utility dependent upon fossil fuel for electricity and the opinions will be one sided. There will always be opposition to change.
Innovation is moving the solar industry forward, now and into the future and that is what North American industry as a whole has always taken pride in. In 2011 when the market experts are eating their yearly ration of crow, the solar power industry will still be churning out innovative new products, more solar businesses will be making money and the solar sector of the alternative power push will continue to mark its place within the new green economy.
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