Solar business from Korea

A new market report says that the PV industry’s first “Solar Cycle” has taken place in 2009, with end-market demand shrinking 14% compared to the previous year. DisplaySearch's "Q4’09 Quarterly PV Cell Capacity Database & Trends Report" states that the contraction was caused by changes in Spain’s incentive policy and was severely aggravated by the worldwide economic crisis and tight credit markets. The report goes on to note how excess manufacturing capacity has helped push down average PV system prices by more than 25%, but that these lower prices, diversification of the demand base, and positive incentive movement in multiple regions are expected to drive substantially higher demand in 2010. “Despite the long-term bright outlook for solar, 2009 demonstrated the industry’s cyclicality and that it is still highly dependent on incentives,” said Charles Annis, DisplaySearch's VP of manufacturing research. “During 2009 there has been nearly 60% oversupply in cell cap...

Five of the leading Chinese crystalline-silicon solar cell and module manufacturers announced their quarterly financial results this week, and in a word, they were stellar, consistently beating market analysts’ estimates. Canadian Solar, China Sunergy, Solarfun, Suntech and Trina Solar all saw their shipments of photovoltaic cells and modules jump way up, in some cases even double, and as a result, sequential revenues also increased significantly. The companies see the growth trend continuing, into the fourth quarter and beyond, suggesting that 2010 will be a boom year—and pushing the Chinese group to continue or even accelerate their capacity expansion plans, as they increase the efficiencies and power of their products and bring down nonsilicon manufacturing costs. The most prodigious gainer in the quarter was Canadian Solar, followed by Trina Solar and Suntech. The not-very-Canadian company more than doubled its shipments, pushing past the century mark for the first time, and increa...