Solar panel glut expected in 2009 (50% price drop by 2012)

[jpak]

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSL810627720081208

POZNAN, Poland, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The solar power sector will produce an over supply of solar panels in 2009, said Zhengrong Shi, chief executive of the world's biggest module manufacturer Suntech (STP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

"We expect definitely an over supply of modules next year," he told Reuters in an interview, adding Suntech expected its euro-denominated prices to fall by 10-15 percent next year, by 25-30 percent in dollars, compared to the third quarter of 2008.

"The financial crisis has accelerated that situation," Shi said. The entire sector could halve the cost of solar power before 2012, he added, assuming companies cooperated on cutting prices across the supply chain.

Low-carbon solar photovolataic (PV) power is much more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives and provides a tiny fraction of the world's electricity. The sector is under pressure to cut costs to prove it can scale up.

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[Vincardog]

1. bring the cost saving on

[roody]

2. Great. I am planning an add-on to my 9 panels.

[Aslanspal]

3. What do you get for your 9 panels???

Pardon my naivete on this, but can you share the positives and the negatives, do these panel hold up in weather?

Do you need a converter?

[roody]

4. I average about 6 or 7 KW per day. I live in N. Cal., so

the weather used to be 6 months sun, 6 months rain. The only upside of not enough rain is more than enough electricity. The system has a Sunny Boy inverter and is tied to the grid. Usually, my bill is a negative number.

[Dead_Parrot]

6. Err, do you mean KWh? nt

[roody]

8. kilowatt hours, yes

[Citizen Number 9]

9. What make and size of panels

do you have?

What's your energy cost per kWh down there?

[roody]

12. The panels are Schott SAPC-165.

165W Power.

http://schottappliedpower.com/

[Systematic Chaos]

5. This is the most dipshit emoticon, numbnut parenthetical load of garbage I've read here...

... since the last most dipshit emoticon, numbnut parenthetical "surplus solar" post. When was that, last week?

In my travels far and wide all over the Las Vegas valley in the city's paratransit service buses, as I go from this doctor to that clinic to the other facility, I spend my free time counting anything that looks like it even might be some kind of solar installation up on a rooftop.

Now, I do possess enough of a brain to know that 616 is less than 860, but unfortunately I lack the Rain Man-esque gift of remembering exactly how many houses I've observed here in town. But, just for shits and giggles - and no, I don't mean

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
(((I'm a complete moron someone please shoot me!)))

giggles. I mean giggles purely in a figurative sense. For shits and giggles, I've probably seen around 10,000 assorted rooftops from all over town. Some in the really hot new subdivisions where the homes used to go for well over $600,000 to be sure, but most of them in areas where the prices of the houses damn well ought to be in the 5-digit range whether they are right now or not.

Out of these 10,000 rooftops, my current count of what sorta, woulda, coulda, might-have-been solar installations has yet to top 20. That's 20 out of an estimated 10,000 homes. In Las Vegas, where we get hot, blazing sunlight we get about 187% sunlight 59 hours per day, 23 days per week. That, by the way, was me practicing to become yet another innumerate renewables zombie here on the good ol' DU. How'd I do? I can haz :dunce:?

So if, as this articles so boldly states, we are about to approach a glut of panels, am I to assume that these other roughly 9,980 out of 10,000 homes will magically grow their own solar roof?

Sure. Maybe that'll happen. Right around the same time they finally find those pesky WMDs over in Eye-Rack.

You may now resume your solar masturbation session already in progress.

[Nederland]

7. NNadir? Is that you? (nt)

[Systematic Chaos]

10. No. I can assure you it's just me.

Any similarities in my post to one of Nnadir's is just a reflection on our similar brands of humor and writing style. :)

But you gotta admit - how the sam HELL can there be any glut of solar panels when a city like Vegas has so few solar installations? The whole OP reeks of blind stupidity and frankly I did laugh out loud for a couple minutes while I read it.

[Nihil]

11. How? It is the human way ...

> how the sam HELL can there be any glut of solar panels when a city
> like Vegas has so few solar installations?

Three options:

1) The increase in production hasn't brought the price down as promised
so domestic PV supporters still can't afford to buy the panels they want.

2) The increase in production has brought the prices down as promised
but domestic PV supporters are just whining bastards who don't put their
money where their mouth is.

3) The vast majority of inhabitants of cities like Vegas are just dumbfucks
who'd rather buy a cheap flat-screen TV than think about the future.

I'd guess the answer is a mixture of #2 & #3 but #1 may still be a contender.

:shrug:

[Systematic Chaos]

14. Show me a decent solar installation you can buy for the cost of a DOZEN plasma TVs

Try being realistic. Hardly anybody could afford that shit when the economy was still "booming".

[Nihil]

23. OK, I was just trying to be nice.

I know, I know but even I do it at times! :P

I still suspect it is due to a mixture of #2 & #3 (even when subsituting
other things for the plasma TV):

> 2) The increase in production has brought the prices down as promised
> but domestic PV supporters are just whining bastards who don't put their
> money where their mouth is.
>
> 3) The vast majority of inhabitants of cities like Vegas are just dumbfucks
> who'd rather buy <any old consumer crap> than think about the future.

:shrug:

[diane in sf]

16. Nevada hasn't done much to stimulate homeowner puchase of solar, unlike CA

I remember seeing all the giant houses with giant air conditioners on top and no trees or solar panels near Hoover Dam--what a waste of natural resources.

[kristopher]

19. Those "giant airconditioners" are probably swamp coolers

Low humidity areas can cool for a small fraction of the cost of "normal" AC.

http://www.google.com/search?ned=tus&rec=0&hl=en&ned=tus&q=swamp+cooler+design&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dsearch=Search+the+Web

[diane in sf]

22. True and I use one here because when it's hot it's dry, but I didn't see one tree

and they were right below a reservoir full of water. Nevada doesn't have the renewable energy incentives we do here in Ca for their utilities or individuals.

[NNadir]

18. I don't need sockpuppets. We already have enough of them here.

A classic one just returned.

[jpak]

21. Koo koo, Koo koo, Koo koo

:rofl:

[HamdenRice]

24. Try learning a smidgen of economics. Eg, there's also a glut of Hummers right now...

but that doesn't mean that every driveway you "count" will have a Hummer sitting in it.

A "glut," or oversupply, is an excess of a product over the projected demand for it at the current price. A "glut," or oversupply, does not mean that every potential consumer who might, under other circumstances, consume the product has bought the product. A projection of over supply suggests that some panels will go unsold, even though many consumers who might get utility from a panel haven't bought them and even if under different conditions, some consumers might buy them.

The demand for solar panels is relatively low, considering their cost and the lack of consumer acceptance, and their price remains high. So the OP is saying that assuming current demand trends, there will be an oversupply of panels at current market conditions.

It is not saying that every potential installation site has a panel and the number of panels is more than the number of those sites.

Maybe if you learned a little about economics before spouting off, you might not write such embarrassingly ill informed "analysis." In that sense, you do indeed write a lot like Nnadir.

[NickB79]

13. An oversupply brought on by declining demand thanks to the global financial collapse

Good times indeed :sarcasm:

[NNadir]

17. Yeah, great news. A bunch of pathetic dumb asses destroy the future

and then giggle stupidly about it.

Haw Haw Haw! Hee! Hee! Hee! Poverty! Disaster!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

No rich people, no solar energy, period. The solar industry exists because of stupid yuppie consumers trying to greenwash their consciences for being, well, stupid yuppie consumers.

The shit for brains yuppie consumers on this website having been saying that "solar energy will save us," "the price of solar will come down" blah, blah, blah, blah, blah for the entire disasterous Bush administration.

In their stupid calculus - and maybe the word "calculus" is a bad choice since the number of "renwables will save us" anti-nukes who know any math is ZERO - a "glut" of solar cells represents less than 0.2 exajoules out of the 500 exajoules now consumed by humanity.

I note, with due contempt, that solar energy can't even make minor inroads against dangerous natural gas, and yet these morally hollow yuppie bastards come here, drunk as a skunk, and have the temerity and viciousness to oppose the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free primary energy.

Yuppie freaks.

[jpak]

20. Koo koo, Koo koo, Koo koo

:rofl:

[kristopher]

15. Or

This could be seen as nothing more than normal business expansion where a forecast need is anticipated by capital markets while the associated and needed policy mechanisms are lagging slightly behind. What do you think is going to happen to demand 1 year from now after Obama sets Gores climate plan into motion?