Say no to sunpower

SolarPowered · September 2014

What I am about to say may shock most of you. This thread eventually may become deleted, or may be locked from responses. From greater higher powers that be coming from no other than the company I speak of right now, but until then, I will tell it how it is.

I've chosen to take a stance in the renewable energy world as an advocate against oil conglomerates.

Unless big oil can make profit in the solar industry they will stay in the solar business. BP proved that the expense wasn't worth the profitable margins of 30% like big oil, so BP gave up, ended all phases of solar manufacturing and distribution.

Now we have a new oil conglomerate in the solar business. SUNPOWER the world leader in back contact monocrystalline conversion efficient cells 6 months ago finally sold the final majority stake shares to TOTAL the 3rd largest "french owned" oil conglomerate in the business. The reason why this company bought the stake in the business was due to the massive profit margins that SUNPOWER holds producing back contact cells for production. Back contact cell production is actually cheaper and more cost effective than most standard monocrystalline cells produced to date.

SUNPOWER is no longer a US owned company. They are owned by the 3rd largest french oil company in the world, with a 60% share holder stake in the company.

I joined the solar industry to be passionate about a carbon free or close to carbon neutral environment. When you purchase SUNPOWER you are re investing into the production of oil.

Oil the black gold, is what starts wars between nations, it creates the animosity for power domination of energy.

As great as SUNPOWER was when it was just beginning in the solar world, taking along the patents of lorentz back contact cells, and improving technology from boeing, and using the expertise of cypress semi conductor to improve on the patents, I would say that I feel SUNPOWER has plateaued, the company knows that it had reached its limits and finally sold its proprietary purpose to big oil.

If you are going to invest into high conversion efficient panel manufacturers look to the future against big oil and invest into such companies as Solar World, LG, and Panasonic. We need to continue investing into better high conversion semi conducting technology, and I don't believe the answer will ever come from big oil.

With Harvest technologies such as MICRO INVERTERS and DC optimizers paving the way for slightly less efficient, smaller panels we are optimizing through harvesting without the need for cheap production, yet overly expensive slightly higher conversion efficient panels.

Done ranting, hope you all see the big picture.

Good Night

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704473104576293310772606394

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-28/total-to-begin-friendly-tender-for-up-to-60-of-sunpower-shares.html

Cariboocoot · September 2014

Re: Say no to sunpower

Not all that clearly expressed but the point is valid: if oil (or other non-RE) companies buy up solar (or other RE) companies there is nothing to stop them from shutting those companies down or otherwise manipulating them to guarantee there's "no profit" in solar. Not much different from the obstructionist policies of certain utility companies.

This is not necessarily the case in this (or any other) example, but the possibility exists.

SolarPowered · September 2014

Re: Say no to sunpower

Cariboocoot wrote: »

Not all that clearly expressed but the point is valid: if oil (or other non-RE) companies buy up solar (or other RE) companies there is nothing to stop them from shutting those companies down or otherwise manipulating them to guarantee there's "no profit" in solar. Not much different from the obstructionist policies of certain utility companies.

This is not necessarily the case in this (or any other) example, but the possibility exists.

From how I understand the oil industry works in the renewable energy sector, big oil buys renewable energy to eventually shut it down.

Chevron/TEXACO - buys bio diesel plants and shuts them down, also has joint ventures with solar firms.

BP- Bought bankrupted solar companies, acquired the technology, then when the renewable end didn't make large profit margins, shut down..

It's just how history repeats itself. I don't believe for a moment that TOTAL acquired sunpower on the basis to sell a high demand of solar, infact if you look at the way the market has been the past few months, SUNPOWER discontinued the spwr 427 which was SUNPOWERS flag ship panel for lease/PPA commercial systems. SUNPOWER is selling off its inventory of cells to the chinese to make these aftermarket sunpower "like" panels. Prior to TOTAL acquisition, SUNPOWERS business model would of done no such thing. While I do see some life in the company now distributing the E18 and E19 SPWR 240 and SPWR 245 to lease companies like sungevity, it seems that sunpower is slowly diminishing its own US based construction division.

What TOTAL wants to do is control the cost of energy, (IF) you want a sunpower panel you will pay more for it to equal the cost of fuel. I would rather boycott to prevent such dealings from moving forward. Sunpower panels range between $1.20~$1.45 per watt (they do not disclose this pricing to the general public).

I don't find it to be a wise investment when LG and Panasonic are already breaking the $1 per watt thresh hold selling their 19~20% conversion efficient panels. Then look at companies such as Solar World that actually De rate their flash test and conversion efficiency so the consumer has the bigger bang for buck panel @ $.92.

Cariboocoot · September 2014

Re: Say no to sunpower

Yup. They only have to crank up the per Watt panel price to rake in profits while destroying the industry. China will give them a bit of trouble on this, but they won't mind seeing profits increase for a while.

Ironic that they will benefit from the reverse of their own actions (dumping panels on the market to put competition out of business): raise panel prices to where solar is no longer affordable (putting companies out of business).

Don't mind me; I'm just a tad extra cynical these days.

Rossman · December 2014

Re: Say no to sunpower

I think I might be the biggest cynic there is, and this is a pretty good "conspiracy theory", but doesn't appear to be valid.

Try looking at it this way - oil companies are actually energy companies. It makes sense in this world of finite resources, that we will eventually exhaust our ready supply of oil (one could argue that is already the case, based on the depths we now have to drill to) and that the energy companies are actually investing in their future buy buying into renewables.

There is just no way anyone is "shutting solar energy down" these days, it is just too prolific, there are new installations going up constantly. It's kind of ridiculous to think that "big oil" can stop this steady progress in any way.

JustinA · April 2016

How about First Solar (US made thin film CdTe and now entering the poly business) and Solar Frontier (CIGS thin film made in Japan)?

SolarPowered · April 2016

Thin film is garbage. Great VOC's but long term the products don't hold up to depreciation, or high tempratures unlike mono, poly, or hybrid like panasonic.

My suggestions: LG Mono X, Panasonic HIT, Solar World, those would be my top choices.

demobanjo · April 2016

Wow! This is interesting! I have always thought that solar energy research and production should have gone further than we currently have. It's possible that these acquisitions and shut downs are premeditated! This is not a good Idea though!

BB. · April 2016

There has been a lot of money dumped down the solar rat hole... And while that has been good for Off Grid solar users (cheap/reliable solar panels and electronics), the overall effect has been a net negative, in my humble opinion (very expensive electric power subsidies to solar power plants, hybrid thermal plants that don't generate predicted power, China having huge water/environmental pollution problems with cell/panel mfg., requiring more fossil fuel peaker plants, requiring coal/base load plants to run at near 100% of wind/solar generation as backup, etc.).

At some point, the pot of cash is going to go broke (governments, tax payers, etc.). We are already seeing the fallout now.

-Bill

Photowhit · April 2016

Well, I see it the other way.

Fossil fuels, will run out it's better to learn now how to produce panels and more efficiently now. Other forms of 'so called' clean energy also have issues. I would hope that we will now look to encourage the cleaner forms of solar production.

Evergreen developed a method that used less energy to create the cells, but I don't know if that's in use anymore. The thin film had promise to be less energy intensive but much of that has become toxic in the hopes of making them more efficient.

I love that Germany has the over developed solar industry, so we can learn from them the scaling we will need to do for alternate forms of energy.

Personally, I've been running numbers and while I'm 'over paneled' now, I may try an even smaller lithium battery bank in the future, storing energy in other ways. such as well insulated 200 gallon warm water tank, Lots of thermal mass so that day time air conditioning is conserved through the night. And I just might build my berm shelter...

...better to think of these things now than when we are so over populated and pinched energy resources reduce us to wars...

...yes I think it's that bad a path we are running!

MarkC · April 2016

Having spent my career in design, build and operation for the refining/petrochemical industry, some fundamentals have been observed.
- Have not heard one of the "majors" EVER talk "conspiracy" to shutdown anything other than their competitors in the refining business.
- Most "majors to have an interest in alternative "energies" and have spent big bucks (especially the "majors") in research to stay on leading edge of technologies. Hydrogen, bio-fuels, solar, gas-to-oil, on and on.
- BP, for one, spent major $$'s on agricultural based bio-fuels and on solar - both of which shut down eventually due to non-competitive technologies as alternative energies, and long term liabilities - basically "money down the rat-hole" as BB has stated.
- The biggest guys have their own reserves and are shielded against (bankruptcy) all but the lowest of crude prices. Fracking can stabilize these (low) prices for decades, so the ROI for any competitive energy technology will likely not be there for decades - unless:
- IMO, the politics of environmental impacts will likely be the determinant in alternative energy sustainability. However (IMO), this "sustainability" is not likely until 1.) the environment gets so severely degraded that the political leaders are affected (China), and 2.) the technologies become so much better that there is a clear advantage from an environmental impact/economics perspective. I also believe that the "majors" will be major players in that mix.

P.S., the World has to stay in one piece for such natural progression to take place! I'd bet many off-gridders question this.

Say no to sunpower

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