Jerome Ball believes that PV cell production may exceed demand by the end of 2008 and that longer term the subsidies of many governments may not continue, leading to reduced growth in demand.   Of course, the second point is exactly what I discussed in Newsletter # 10.  Ball provides an excellent statistical summary of projected PV cell production. read full post

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It was the year of the solar stock.  I owned ASTI, among others, but not long or hard enough.  Of course there are only two kinds of stocks: those you own too much of and those you don’t own enough of.  Here is the record for solar stocks.

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Transition to the Electric Economy

New year’s day is a good time for long term thinking and planning. Today I want to relate some fairly visible long term prospects for global energy changes to a few of their more obscure short term investment implications that are actionable.

The great game of the next era in human use of energy is going to be the transition from a petro/electric economy to a fully electric one, motivated by the end of affordable fossil fuels. Transportation is the name of this game because it uses …

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December 27, 2007 Solar Cell Production Jumps 50 Percent in 2007 Jonathan G. Dorn Production of photovoltaics (PV) jumped to 3,800 megawatts worldwide in 2007, up an estimated 50 percent over 2006. At the end of the year, according to preliminary data, cumulative global production stood at 12,400 megawatts, enough to power 2.4 million U.S. homes. Growing by an impressive average of 48 percent each year since 2002, PV production has been doubling every two years, making it the world’s fastest-growing energy source. Photovoltaics, which …

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  Akeena Solar (AKNS) will be reporting their Q3 2007 earnings on Tuesday, Nov. 17th, and I wanted to give a little preview of what to expect. They install residential and small business solar systems in CA and NJ and have been on a tear lately, opening 5 new offices in 11 months in California. 85% of the nation’s solar installations are performed in California and Akeena is at the center of that growth. The U.S. residential solar market is expected to grow at a 64% annual rate …

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August 16, 2007 According to a new report from NanoMarkets LC the global market for thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) is forecast to reach $7.2 billion by 2015, compared to just over $1.0 billion today. The report states that the market is being driven by the inherent advantages of TFPV. . . . most manufacturers are ramping up production capacity and several — including First Solar, Fuji Electric, Nanosolar, Sanyo, Uni-Solar and G24i — are building plants with more than 100 MW in capacity. Some of the …

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