The Return of the Badly Rhyming 12 Days of Solar Christmas

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As the global PV industry struggles out of consistent quarterly losses in 2012 through initially mixed results in 2013 and with some companies returning to positive gross margins and a few returning to positive operating margins it is time to celebrate getting out of another year alive. The return to breakeven was aided by low costs for polysilicon as well as low costs for consumables and more rapid learning resulting in lower manufacturing costs – a trifecta of good news for manufacturers. Caveats to the industry’s apparent recovery include the unsustainable low prices for polysilicon and wafers as well as the continued losses for some cell manufacturers in spite of lower raw material costs. Figure 1 offers PV industry metrics for 2013 moving into 2014.

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