A Chinese solar giant goes bankrupt, and why that's a good thing

Once the world's largest solar panel maker, Suntech Power, has finally been forced into bankruptcy. The company has been running out of cash for months, defaulted on a loan payment recently, and has now become the biggest casualty yet of the coming consolidation of the global solar industry.

This week eight Chinese banks asked a court to find Suntech subsidiary Wuxi Suntech insolvent and to allow it to begin restructuring. Suntech responded to the court and said it would not object. The New York Times reported that the bankruptcy is "expected to lead to a takeover of the Wuxi operations by Wuxi Guolian, a financial conglomerate controlled by the city government of Wuxi."

The solar market has seen an oversupply of solar panels and plummeting prices for those panels for over two years now. Two thirds of solar cells are made in China, where the Chinese government has given Chinese solar makers access to large low cost loans. The oversupply and drop in prices has led to huge solar manufacturers like Q-Cells to startups like Solyndra and Abound Solar to file for bankruptcy.

Suntech solar panels

Suntech may be the largest to date, but it won't be the last solar maker to crash. As MIT Tech Review put it earlier this week: "hundreds of solar companies need to fail to help bring the supply of solar panels back in line with demand."

The weeding-out process will help slow the fall in solar panel prices and allow demand to rise back up again. Down the road the re-balancing will enable these companies to continue to invest in more efficient cells and new innovations, which will bring down the cost of solar through technology even more. Another 180 solar panel makers could reportedly disappear by 2015 due to consolidation.

At the same time, Suntech's woes partly come from a financial scandal. The company got in trouble with a fund it controlled that financed solar power plant development in Europe.

Of course, it's not all positive that Suntech has declared bankruptcy. As Ucilia Wang wrote for us last week:

The drama presents an ugly turn for a company that was solid and took technology and market risks to grow. . . Chinese companies in general had been known more as mass producers rather than innovators. . . Suntech's decline also leaves a depressing note in the efforts by the federal and local governments to expand solar manufacturing in the U.S.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Cleantech and investment in 2013
• After Solyndra: analyzing the solar industry
• Flash analysis: lessons from Solyndra's fall

http://gigaom.com/2013/03/20/a-chinese-solar-giant-goes-bankrupt-and-w

2012 was a record-breaking year for solar panels in the US

Last year there was a record-breaking 3.3 gigawatts worth of solar panels - or 16 million individual solar panels - installed in the U.S., making solar power the fastest-growing energy source domestically. That's according to a new report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research. In comparison, a large nuclear or coal plant can generate about a gigawatt, so there was the equivalent of three of these types of large power plant ...

http://gigaom.com/2013/03/14/2012-was-a-record-breaking-year-for-solar

Struggles continue for thin film solar startups, Nanosolar latest with layoffs

Super cheap solar panels being churned out of China continue to put pressure on the startups looking to build the next generation of thin-film solar cells. According to two reports (Dana Hull, and Greentech Media) thin-film solar startup Nanosolar has done a round of layoffs, which could be as substantial as 75 percent of its staff.

Oh how times have changed - one of the first stories I did for GigaOM's cleantech channel was "10 questions for Nanosolar CEO Martin Roschiesen" in the summer of 2007. Back then Roschiesen told me the company was starting pilot production that year and had raised enough money to make it profitable. In 2008, the company was valued at $2 billion.

Fast forward to 2012, and Nanosolar raised $70 million from investors, reportedly at a pre-money valuation of $50 million. Aeris Capital, a fund that manages finances for SAP founder Klaus Tschira, partly funded that round as a way to pick up solar assets on the cheap. Other investors in that round included OnPoint Technologies, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Ohana Holdings, and Family Offices. Nanosolar has taken in at least $450 million since its start in 2002.

Nanosolar makes thin solar panels out of a material called copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS). At one time in Silicon Valley, CIGS was the great white hope - Solyndra, Heliovolt, Miasole, and others raised hundreds of millions of dollars to build the next-generation of solar tech. But the price of silicon-based solar dropped dramatically and made the economics of selling more expensive CIGS panels much more difficult. Some of these companies have gone bankrupt, done major layoffs, retrenched or been sold off in fire sales.

Solar Frontier, part of Japan's Showa Shell, is one of the only companies to reach scale with its CIGS solar panels. The company completed a 900 MW factory in late 2010 and brought all of its production lines into commercial production mode by the summer of 2011.

Nanosolar could end up being acquired for cheap from international investors. South Korean and Chinese power conglomerates have particuarly shown interest in investing in and buying discounted U.S. clean power assets. Or there's always the Solyndra route - a very public, abrupt bankruptcy.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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http://gigaom.com/2013/02/19/struggles-continue-for-thin-film-solar-st

China is buying up a third of the world's solar panels

China has long been the world's supplier of low cost solar panels, and now it's a major market for them, too. According to research firm NPD's SolarBuzz report, in the last quarter of 2012 China bought up 33 percent of the world's solar panel supply.In contrast, two years prior China accounted for less than 10 percent of the world's solar panel sales. The shift is a combo of slowing sales in Europe, and strong subsidies for solar panels in China. ...

http://gigaom.com/2013/01/22/china-is-buying-up-a-third-of-the-worlds-

Why crowd funding could disrupt how solar power is created

If you're an avid Kickstarter backer, or even have seen Kickstarter's latest 2012 stats, then you're well-versed in the power of crowd-funding. Kickstarter recently said that 10 percent of the films at Sundance are Kickstarter-funded, and in 2012 over 2 million people pledged close to $320 million to successfully fund over 18,000 Kickstarter projects on the site. Can clean power projects - like solar panel rooftop installations and even wind farm ...

http://gigaom.com/2013/01/11/why-crowd-funding-could-disrupt-how-solar

Solar Mosaic fully crowd funds its new solar projects in less than 24 hours

On Monday Solar Mosaic officially opened up its solar crowd-funding site to residents in California and New York as well as accredited investors. And by Tuesday, the site had fully funded all three of the new projects that were made available to public investors, which will install solar panels on affordable housing projects in Corte Madera, Calif., Salinas, Calif., and San Bruno, Calif. Solar Mosaic still has one solar project available at this ...

http://gigaom.com/2013/01/08/solar-mosaic-fully-crowd-funds-its-new-so

Solar Mosaic turns "the Kickstarter of solar" into a way to make money

Updated: At 9AM (PST) on Monday, the Kickstarter of solar, Solar Mosaic, will officially open its site to residents of California and New York, as well as accredited investors, looking to make money by investing in solar panel roof projects. For months (at least since last summer), Solar Mosaic has been enabling a small amount of investors to experiment with investing in, and earning money from, the returns from solar roofs, but this is the company's big public launch.

The company was founded back in October 2010, and I wrote one of the first profiles of Solar Mosaic in October 2011. It took the startup a little over two years to test out its beta Kickstarter-style platform and become registered to share securities with the public. Last year, it got a vote of confidence from the crowd funding bill. The company is backed by Spring Ventures.

For potential investors, solar roofs can provide a low-risk return - anywhere between 4 and 12 percent on an investment - kind of like investing in a mutual fund. Building owners lease solar panel systems and enter into a contract for a fixed, low electricity rate, commonly over about two decades. Solar Mosaic organizes the crowd-funding to get the solar rooftop installed, and works with a solar lease provider like Sungevity. Once the project gets crowd-funded, the rooftop solar panel installation process starts.

Solar loans are backed by a revenue-producing asset (electricity) and the building owners pay for the solar electricity monthly in the same way they have been paying their monthly utility bill. The buildings owners aren't all that likely to default on their electricity payments, and the costs, timelines and returns for solar panels are pretty transparent as the technology has become increasingly commoditized. Another company that has created a site for crowd-funded solar is SunFunder.

Solar Mosaic says its first investments will offer a 4.5 percent annual return, including servicing fees, with a nine-year term. The company says it is offering "a better expected yield than most investment products available to the general public." The company will hold a press call at 10 PST, and we'll update this story after the call.

Update:

There are three new solar projects that residents of California and New York can put money in as of Monday morning, including solar panels on the roofs of affordable housing projects in Corte Madera, Calif., Salinas, Calif., and San Bruno, Calif.

The company said on a media call that the SEC approval process took longer than expected because what Solar Mosaic has been working on is so novel, and because the SEC also has been slow on implementing the Jobs Act.

See our previous stories on Solar Mosaic:

• Solar Mosaic, the Kickstarter of solar aims high
• The Kickstarter of solar could make you money starting this Summer
• How crowd-funding could revolutionize solar
• The clean energy revolution will be crowd funded

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/solar-mosaic-turns-the-kickstarter-of-sola

Deep sea bacteria could provide breakthroughs for solar panels

Bacteria that live almost a mile under the surface of the ocean, where light is scare, have adapted biological ways to harness tiny amounts of light very efficiently, and in some cases can use photosynthesis to convert 100 percent of the light they find into electricity. In contrast a typical solar panel commonly converts around 15 percent of sunlight into electricity.

Now researchers at the University of Cambridge are studying the light-harvesting proteins of the deep sea Green Sulfur Bacteria to see if they can provide breakthroughs for solar energy and other electricity devices. The research is in an area called quantum biology, and the scientists say it falls outside of 'classical' physics, and into quantum physics.

Organisms that do photosynthesis use a network of pigments held in place by protein structures, or what scientists call pigment-protein complexes, where electrons are harvested. In many organisms as the electrons move through these systems they lose energy. But in the Green Sulfur Bacteria they are able to move electrons through their photosynthesis system to the point of harvest without losing that energy on the way.

Raising the efficiency of solar cells (which make up solar panels) is very important work for solar companies. The higher the efficiency of the cells, the more electricity can be created by the panel and the fewer cells and panels needed.

Solar companies have been working diligently on these innovations in recent years, as the basic low efficiency solar panels become more and more commoditized. For example, Alta Devices, makes cells that can convert a whopping 28.8 percent of sunlight into electricity. But those types of cells are far more expensive than the standard cells, and many are still in the research and development phase.

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/how-deep-sea-bacteria-could-provide-breakt

Post-IPO, SolarCity plans to ratchet up solar roofs to 250MW in 2013

Following an IPO that saw solar installer and financier SolarCity's shares rise almost 50 percent on its first day of trading, the Elon Musk-backed company now says it has a robust growth plan in place for its solar roofs in 2013. This year, SolarCity says it plans to install 250 MW of solar roof capacity, up from 156 MW of solar roofs capacity installed in 2012. To put that in perspective, the entire solar panel industry in the U.S. is estimated ...

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/post-ipo-solarcity-plans-to-ratchet-up-sol

Building integrated solar panels set to boom over the next 5 years

Solar panels that can be integrated right into rooftops and the walls of buildings is a new market that is set to grow dramatically over the next five years, according to a new report from Pike Research, a part of Navigant. The report says that the energy capacity of solar panels that are built into the structures of buildings will grow from 400 MW in 2012 to 2.25 GW in 2017, or a five-fold increase worldwide.

The solar industry calls this technology "building-integrated photovoltaics" or BIPV. Some of this new capacity will come from thin film solar panels that will be able to be printed right onto building materials, like shingles, steel roof casing, and windows. A lot of companies have been gunning for this market, and many have been held back by the difficult solar production market in 2012. There are at least 53 companies working on this tech, says Pike.

Dow launched its solar shingle product about a year ago in Colorado and began selling them in California and Texas earlier this year. Miasole, which was sold to China's Hanergy in a firesale, had been working on BIPV, as had Arizona-based Global Solar Energy, which recently started layoffs and curbed manufacturing. Dozens of solar module makers went bankrupt or struggled in 2012, due to an oversupply and rock bottom prices.

But the BIPV market could provide a bright spot, says the Pike report. The value of the BIPV market could quadruple over the next five years from $606 million in 2012 to $2.4 billion in 2017. The market will also be encouraged by a rebound of home sales and construction.

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/building-integrated-solar-panels-set-to-bo

5 charts that show the massive growth of solar in 2012 [charts]

Despite solar manufacturers' struggles with bankruptcies and an oversupply problem this year, 2012 actually witnessed a dramatic growth in the world's use of solar power. In particular the amount of solar panels installed on rooftops in the U.S. soared in recent quarters, helped by new financing models by companies like SolarCity and rock-bottom silicon prices - the main ingredient in solar panels.

In these 5 charts, we track the growth of solar power:

1). The amount of solar energy produced in the U.S. has risen 500 percent in 2012 alone, according to the Energy Information Administration.

2). The increase in solar production has to do in part with the growth of solar panel installation and capacity in the U.S. Solar panel installation is expected to rise nearly 70 percent this year, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association's third-quarter report.

3). SolarCity's IPO in late 2012 was one of the rare success stories for solar and cleantech startups. While some solar stocks have taken hits this year - due to over supply and super low prices - SolarCity was able to go public and its stock rose 50 percent on its first day of trading. The company, which finances and installs rooftop solar panels, originally priced its shares lower than expected, but the company's stock price remains relatively high.

4). The price of silicon - the main material in solar panels - has dropped by half in less than two years, making solar panels cheaper to produce and to buy. The low prices, in turn, have fueled the growth of solar panel installations.

5). As is common with new commodity industries that grow rapidly, solar cells and panels are now so cheap to produce and make that there's an oversupply problem. According to SEIA, there's now 70 GW worth of solar module manufacturing capacity, but the current world capacity for solar modules is only 31 GW.

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/5-charts-that-show-the-amazing-growth-in-s