Bloomberg Reports: Glut of Solar Panels Drying Up

[pleppik]

Link

Interesting (to me) factoids from the article:

• China installed 12 GW (!) of PV in 2013, up from 3.6 GW in 2012
• Many PV manufacturers are reporting growth well over 20% (in watts)
• The surviving manufacturers have cut costs and are on track to be profitable this year

[Naptown]

This will cause an uptick in consumer costs due to increased demand and reduced manufacturing capacity. Seems that there is no time like the present.

[pleppik]

This will cause an uptick in consumer costs due to increased demand and reduced manufacturing capacity. Seems that there is no time like the present.

From the statistics I saw, module prices already ticked up in 2013, but prices for other system components dropped so the average installed system price still fell.

Also, even though some manufacturers went out of business, overall capacity is still up--though not growing as fast as demand. The survivors are adding manufacturing capacity like crazy.

In a market simultaneously experiencing rapid growth and pricing collapse, the rule is Get Big Or Get Dead.

[Naptown]

True I have seen an uptick in module prices but inverter prices and BOS items have fallen.