Steve Pluvia

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  • German Subsidy Fears Trigger Solar Downgrades
    GERMAN SUBSIDY CUTS DON'T MATTER TO THIN FILM PV

    Worst case scenario: Germany cuts subsidy by the maximum discussed [30%]. Thin film avg sales price [ASP] is dropping to $2.00-2.20 ASP in 2009; $1.80-2.00/watt in 2010 due to new product from AMAT plants and CIGS companies, [Nanosolar, ASTI, Miasole, Global Solar].

    ***Bottom line: the subsidy was too high for product that at these prices is at grid parity with coal power.***

    WHAT THE MARKET MISSED YESTERDAY -- THIN FILM PV IS AT GRID PARITY

    Grid parity with coal power = installed cost below $3.50-3.75 -- this is possible with ASP below $2.20/watt. Every thin film mfgr will be selling below 2.20 in '09-'10.

    Now is the time to LOAD UP on thin film, particularly CIGS companies. ASTI is the ONLY CIGS public play. Thin film profit margins will be 50-70% and sales will be max-plant-capacity for more than 7yrs.

    Take advantage of the baby being thrown out with the bathwater; most on the street don't understand the difference between thin-film PV and c-SI -- take advantage of this opportunity while its available.
    May 30 09:29 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • First Solar, SunPower: Threatened by Applied Materials Advances?
    fxtrader: How will AMAT plants reduce FSLR profit margins?

    Are you suggesting product from AMAT plants will be forced to price compete with FSLR product -- which has an ASP of $2.50/watt?

    Hmmm lets review:

    1. c-Si represents more than 95% of the market and last Q had an ASP of $3.50-$4.00/watt;

    Will AMAT plants try to sell their product to c-SI buyers for more than 30% less than they're currently paying or will they drop their price below FSLR prices which ends up making them SUBSTANTIALLY LESS profit?

    Tough one. I should consult the dart-throwing-monkey.....
    May 28 11:45 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • First Solar, SunPower: Threatened by Applied Materials Advances?
    Tiernan Ray:

    Signet built a factory in 3 months? Hmmm once again your random scribbling fails both a simple fact check and common sense. The factory was built in 10 months; its not possible to build a PV plant in 3 months.

    www.redorbit.com/news/.../


    "after a note from Friedman, Billings, Ramsey analyst Mehdi Hosseini stated that a customer of equipment maker Applied Materials (AMAT) was able to build a panel factory in three months’ time using Applied’s tools"
    May 28 09:48 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • My Top 5 Alternative Energy Stocks - and 10 Honorable Mentions
    Andrew, one other thing re: AMAT -- from my discussions with AMAT, nobody is really considering buying their a-SI line as the efficiency is way too low.
    May 16 09:36 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • My Top 5 Alternative Energy Stocks - and 10 Honorable Mentions
    Andrew -- Re: AMAT's Sunfab line:

    "Their Sunfab line utilizes readily available amorphous silicon instead of more exotic rare metals such as tellurium in cdte or indium in CIGS."

    Actually AMAT has a CDTE and a a-Si line; The last time I talked to AMAT's people, the a-SI line efficiency is expected to be 5-6% -- not 9% as you suggested.

    I am not aware of any a-SI that produces 9% efficiency from a commercial line, I would not expect AMAT who is new and well behind the curve in this technology, to break any records with Gen-1 equipment.
    May 16 09:34 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    Peak Power vs Off Peak Power

    Here's a good example of peak power cost vs off-peak:

    www.rockymtnpower.net/...


    Look under the state in question, then under schedules; peak off peak

    UTAH:
    For 7am-11pm peak hours rates are $0911
    off peak rates are $.0274

    Produce power with PV during peak daytime hours; then charge your Plug-in Hybrid after 11p for 1/3 the cost you generated during the day...

    www.rockymtnpower.net/...
    Apr 18 18:09 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    "Is it wise to install a solar system in an area that has golf-ball sized hail once every 10 years?"

    Only if you have bowling size bauls... or CIGS on non-glass substrate... [Nanosolar or ASTI]
    Apr 18 14:50 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    zawy & Andrew,

    I use this calculator as it automatically calculates loss for inverter & line:

    rredc.nrel.gov/solar/c.../

    But, as you correctly point out, it does not calculate cost of money.

    zawy Re: peak vs off peak power, you are right, peak is not 5x higher; I'm looking for a good data source for summer peak but have not yet found one; what I have found is info from a local utility co; they charge $.045 more per kwh for peak power, $.015 less for off peak.

    Look for peak power price in your area, then increase the power price in the calculator by this amount; also, you should expect to add another 3-5cents [guesstimate] for carbon credit as soon as the democrats win the white house.

    When you run the calculator using peak power prices with or without carbon credit, the numbers show a system installed for $3.50/watt is cheaper than utility power [if you have 5+ avg solar hrs]. In other words if you can buy/install FSLR panels today you're cheaper than utility power. Payback with peak power [for our avg solar hours] is 15ish yrs; 11ish years with carbon credit.

    We've designed systems for hi-end flat roof residential homes; we have no problem finding enough non-shaded roof space for a 10kw thin film system, [although these are large homes on big lots]. Install costs do not exceed 1.25/watt, usually coming in at about 1.05/watt [.73 for inverter, the remainder for cabling framing etc].

    Image payback with the $2.00/watt + California credit.... Or Nanosolar Panels priced at $1-1.50....
    Apr 18 11:55 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    By my calculations using Firstsolar PV product at installed cost of 3.00/watt without any subsidies I can install a 10kw solar system that will produce power for .08/kwh, assuming 25yr life of panel.
    Apr 17 15:25 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    "Keep in mind that $3/Wp is $14 per actual watt when averaged over 24 hr in relatively sunny places like the southeast U.S. that averages only 5kWh/day/m^2 of sun."

    5hrs/day in southwest is wrong.

    Avg daily sun hrs in:

    Tuscon: 6.58hr/day
    Las Vegas 6.41hr/day
    Albuquerque NM 6.77hr/day

    www.bigfrogmountain.co...

    By my calculations using Nanosolar PV product by 2010, without any subsidies I can install a 10kw solar system for a cost of under .08/kwh; less than current utility power.
    Apr 17 13:49 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    zawy, I don't follow ANY of your calculations; not only are they unintelligible, but the parts that can be followed -- are wrong. For example:

    "Keep in mind that $3/Wp is $14 per actual watt when averaged over 24 hr in relatively sunny places like the southeast U.S. that averages only 5kWh/day/m^2 of sun."

    huh? Firstoff, solar produces daytime, peak energy -- hi cost daytime energy which is often 5x more valuable in terms of price than nighttime energy. You missed this. If you want to try to comp costs between different technologies, use kwh as we discussed earlier, then explain how you came to you numbers given the wholesale lack of reliable energy production numbers for various different solar technologies; then explain how you determine transmission loss -- which for solar is dependent on proximity to user... which you don't know... but can generally assume is very close to end user... vs coal for example which is not.

    "and I expect them to keep a $1/Wp profit margin."

    Huh? why would they maintain more than 100% margin? Nobody does that...

    "This allows 60% losses, a great profit margin, and overcoming even U.S. regulatory hurdles."

    Huh? are you trying to comp nuke to solar? You cannot begin to do that. Nuke cannot be built right now, end of story. You have absolutely no idea how much it will cost to build nuke because you don't know what regulatory hurdles you must jump thru, and you don't know what construction costs will be 10-20yrs down the road should you get regulatory approval. This is a ridiculous exercise.
    Apr 17 12:43 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    zawy, your assumptions are wrong.

    1. Cost of power at [e.g.] nuke or coal plant vs cost of delivered power [to customer]

    1. TRANSMISSION LOSSES ARE APPROX 60%;
    2. COST AT COAL PLANT IS NOT ACTUAL COST;
    3. ACTUAL COST INCLUDES COST AT COAL PLANT PLUS TRANSMISSION LOSS PLUS SOON TO BE ADDED CO2 EMISSION TAX

    Re BCON:

    Nobody with interconnect agreement needs storage; excess is stored in the grid when your meter runs backwards. Paying for storage when interconnect is available adds un-needed cost to a power system.

    Re: FSLR install costs:

    FSLR just installed a 40mw field for approx 3.50/watt [including all costs -- PV panels & install].

    Your installed cost calcs are wrong.


    Apr 16 12:06 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    Zawy:

    "Steve, people should look at watt-hr instead of watts, but no one really knows how long the various technologies will last and it depends on environment."

    I agree this is the best metric for comparing different energy production technologies; but for solar-solar comps cost/watt works well, mostly because its a readily available figure.

    watt-hr figures in solar get a little confusing as different technologies perform differently in the same light conditions; e.g. some thin film tech works pretty good in hi cloud conditions whereas Si perform poorly. Without side-by-side testing the watt-hr numbers will be misleading.

    I also agree with you re nuke power being cheap and somewhat green. Problem with nuke power is the 15-20yr permitting process...
    Apr 15 15:56 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    "Where is ASTI going to get $220M plus $50M in R&D and G&A over the next 4 years?"

    80mm Secondary filed March 14
    28mm Option from Norsk March 27

    Money is not a problem for CIGS co's that meet their milestones:

    biz.yahoo.com/bw/08033...

    "Ascent Solar employs a unique roll-to-roll manufacturing process to produce photovoltaic modules on large format plastic rolls. The first set of production runs with the new processing tools resulted in better than expected average efficiencies of 9.5% including a high efficiency of 10.27%"
    Apr 15 15:37 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry
    ltinvestor:

    "Peaple makes two mistakes when looking at FSLR: 1)They fail to make apples to apples comparisons.... it is not fair to comapre it to its $2.20 competitor price."

    Ummm WRONG.

    I've given you DIRECT apples-to-apples comparisons of what it costs the different technologies to produce a PV panel/watt, specifically:

    Si -- $2.20 -2.40/watt
    CdTe -- $1.12/watt [using asian labor/plants]
    CIGS -- $.60-80/watt in USA plants.

    None of these figures include install costs. Do your homework, you seem lost.



    -- that's how much it costs a company to produce a watt of energy.
    Apr 15 14:25 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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