This is your SolarWakeup for August 17th, 2017

The 201 Petition PR Tactic. The hearing at the trade commission had the solar industry outnumbering the bankrupt petitioners by a 10 to 1 ratio. As I read the quote from Suniva, ““We’re not out to kill the industry,” said Matt Card, Suniva’s VP of commercial operations. “We are very open to a solution that works for all parties.” I realized that the company is trying to position itself post 201 petition as a company that can still do business in the market. It’s hard to understand what it is that the petitioners want because they’ve already called for an insanely high minimum price that would cripple our market. If they really mean what they said, then they should propose something else. How about $0.03/watt tariff on foreign modules that is given back as a subsidy to US manufacturing in the form of payroll adjustments? In a 10GW market, that would be a significant amount of money to create local manufacturing jobs.

SolarWorld Goes To Market. As an update to the previous comment about SolarWorld assets being purchased by the CEOs new company, the US entity was not yet purchased and represents the key subsidiary of SolarWorld. The administrator will focus on this now and try to find a buyer for the company. Interesting opportunity for the company to decide how the 201 petition impacts the ability to market the company.

Nevada Netmetering Nightmare. I don’t know if the Nevada regulatory fight will ever end but the market will keep moving in the forward direction including the restructuring of the energy market.

Opinion

 

Have a great day!

Yann