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samboct -> RE: Solyndra Bites the Big One (10/9/2011 7:17:33 PM)
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After close to a week at a solar workshop- here's what I've got on the Solyndra debacle...
Yes, it's gossip- but it's industry gossip..
1) Solyndras stuff was actually pretty popular in northern Japan. Turns out that it works well in snowy climes, the cylinders don't allow the snow to stick, and the snow falls through increasing albedo-so power production in winter increases rather than decreases.
2) There is some chance that the line will be sold intact, although it's going to take at least a year to deal with DOJ issues.
3) The company had a high burn rate. Given that there were VCs in the firm, this isn't all that surprising, but they spent money too quickly and somewhat foolishly.
4) The DOE has people that reviewed business plans of other firms that received money. This team was bypassed for Solyndra. Clearly there was some political maneuvering for funding.
5) Overall the PV industry is in deep, deep trouble. Estimates out of China are that global PV production capacity is 50 GW. This capacity glut is what's causing the current prices to fall, not improvements in production technology. Current global demand is around 20 GW. There are companies in China that have shut down production lines- thus there's a fair amount of pain going around. Also- Chinese companies have little to differentiate their products, whereas Solyndra did.
Clearly, there's lots of pain in the PV industry now. However, China is angling to become the worlds PV supplier and I think this is a terrible problem- if they lock up production, the rest of the world will have to buy from them, and that doesn't sound good to me.
Sam
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