New jobs in solar energy help recession and environment

An emphasis on solar (photovoltaic) energy is environmentally sound and will helpemploymen, President Obama to note. There is no question that the panels will work in homes. But are the national electric grids equipped to accept solar sources, as more and more homs equip themselves with panels and produce excess energy? Or more importantly,as panels become a narional or at least state-wide source?

The generation of panels for hme use is expanding, although in today's economic environment these $25,000 installations are not growing as much as in pat carefree years.

In Hillsboro, OR Solar World AG from Bonn is starting a panels factory (500 jobs, easily, goal 1,000)making 1,700 cells/day. They are rewamping a CA facility bought from Shell Group, and exploring Al, NM, GA sites.

Even as SolarWorld charges ahead, adding new equipment and breaking ground for its factory expansion, there are daily reminders of the challenges ahead. The company’s share price has declined more than 30 percent in two years, to 21.05 euros ($27.80), largely because of slowing demand and a growing number of manufacturers.

Asia has also become a manufacturing hub for solar power, and many panels from China have entered the market, although the recession has forced some companies to cut back. Suntech Power, a leading Chinese manufacturer, is now using just 55 percent of its factories’ capacity, though it, too, is looking for factory space in the United States for the long term.

Like the rest of the industry, SolarWorld is also trying to adjust to the decline in panel prices, which are likely to keep falling into the summer, given the oversupply and the continuing credit crisis.
Boris Klebensberger, CEO of US SolarWorld tries to put a positive spin on this, noting that the first quarter — whose results are due in a few weeks — is always relatively weak because Europeans avoid installing panels during the winter.

For all of last year, the company’s sales grew at a heady 31 percent. But the pace of growth in the fourth quarter slowed considerably.
Industrywide installations in the first quarter in California, the largest market in the United States, remain robust. Installers there are wary, however. They say demand dried up in the last six months because companies lack financing and homeowners are more worried about their mortgages than sinking $25,000 or more into making electricity on their roof.
Analysts say the first-quarter figures in California may have had a boost from projects that were already in the pipeline and that future numbers may be less robust. A year ago, installers say, they were calling manufacturers to ask for panels; now the situation is reversed, with manufacturers making sales calls.

In the meantime, the competition among manufacturers is likely to intensify. Even as some of the weaker solar companies resort to layoffs, a number of big names — including Schott, First Solar, SunPower and Sharp — are building, expanding or looking to build manufacturing plants in the United States. Sanyo, the Japanese electronics company, is building a solar wafer factory in Salem, Oregon’s capital, that is to begin production this fall.
Mr. Klebensberger relishes the competition and the potential boost it can give the American economy. Solar energy can provide jobs and energy security, he says, “so it’s a way out of the crisis.”



Dr. Paranoia thanks NYTimes (5/3/09) for info.