Solar bubble?
25th November, 2011 by Alexa Schubert | 2 commments
Just as solar picks up speed in the expanding renewables market, US based company Solyndra has just declared bankruptcy. Supported with a huge $535m loan guarantee from the federal government, Obama hoped this would make solar more affordable for US consumers.
Unfortunately, Solyndra was "never able to get [its] manufacturing costs low enough to be competitive with solar panel manufacturers in China, as well as solar manufacturer companies here in the United States."
Solyndra declared bankruptcy in September and is under investigation by the Department of Energy. The scandal has caused a political tug of war over energy in the US, something to watch to see how it plays out.
Comments
Hi Alban, thank you for your comment, which we think is fair. We have adjusted the title accordingly.
An inaccurate & sweeping headline, which needs urgent correction. OK, one US manufacturer, Solyndra failed, .... in a world where, reports HSBC, capacity for solar panel manufacture runs at 80 GW per year, and demand ran at 18 GW last year.... (Think of that solar total as 18 nuke power stations, the nuke power stations which are now too costly, too risky to build.. ) If public money was foolishly advanced to aid a US manufacturer, that still means that one manufacturer failed; wholly false logic to say that the entire solar industry keeled over & died! On the contrary, in the US and plenty of other places, solar is going gang-busters, as its costs per kWh generated plummet by 20% & more. Please correct, if FFF is not to brought into disrepute.
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