Is Solar fading into the Sunset?

The article below is indicative of the realities of solar energy, great product in theory but the economics just don't work, at least not yet.

Continuing lowering prices for less effective solar cells make it impossible to make money in the business as a manufacturer.  Reminds me of the story of the Texas Aggie grad selling watermelons, he decided he needed a bigger truck for us his business.  When asked why he said, "well I am losing a dollar on each melon but with this small truck I can't sell enough to even break-even, so I figure if I could just get  a bigger truck I could make up the loss by significantly increasing my volume of sales!"  Rumor has it this Aggie went broke, got into politics and ended up as the Mayor of large Texas City.

Marc

Is the sun setting on solar?

By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

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While low prices for PV technology have led to increasing installations, these prices are also likely to lower quality technology and installations, possibly resulting in a global backlash against solar power, Pike Research contends. Solar technologies, including concentrated solar power, photovoltaic , and concentrated photovoltaic, are going through a significant correction as a seven-year period of capacity building, aggressive pricing, and promises of grid parity driven largely by feed-in tariffs comes to an end, according to Pike. Given high levels of capacity, mounting inventory, and decreasing incentive levels, PV industry growth could be flat to negative for the next couple of years, Pike concludes. "Low prices and generous tariffs have led directly to the expectation of even lower prices, even as manufacturing capacities have increased and new market entrants have flooded the industry, most assuming that the outcome would be high profits," said Paula Mints, Director of Solar Research for Pike. "For technology suppliers, the expectation that prices will consistently decrease has led to painful consolidation and failure. Certainly, selling less and losing less would be in the industry's best interests. Historically, however, the PV industry has behaved in a manner that indicates growth is the desired state, even if this growth is unprofitable." All this aside, solar is not going away and will play an important part in the future energy mix, she added.