The Solar PV Shipment Shell Game

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Outsourcing has been a common practice in the photovoltaic industry since…always. Ignoring it in favor of reporting higher shipment numbers has been a common practice since…always. There is more outsourcing now than there was ten years ago because the industry is bigger. When the PV industry was at megawatt levels, outsourcing was at megawatt levels. Now that the industry is at gigawatt levels, outsourcing is at gigawatt levels. Today’s outsourcing is also more acceptable — in the past everyone did it quietly, today it is out in the open. Yet despite this openness and acceptability, double counting continues and the industry continues to be oversized.

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