Five predictions for solar market
eetimes.com
Mark LaPedus
1/6/2011 2:03 PM EST
SAN JOSE, Calif. - In 2009, the solar market was cold. Then, solar was hot in 2010. What's in store for 2011?
Here's five predictions based on a report from Edwin Mok, an analyst at Needham & Co. LLC:
1. Slowdown seen
''While we are not substantially more bullish than the consensus view for solar installation, we are still projecting solar installation to grow 13 percent year over year to 16.7GW in 2011 versus over 100 percent growth seen in 2010. The slower growth rate is based largely on our belief that a slowdown in Germany, the Czech Republic and France will dwarf strong growth in other key markets, including the U.S., Italy, Japan, Canada and China.
We expect quarterly changes in shipments throughout 2011 to directionally look similar to what we saw in 2009, where demand slows in 1H11 and bounces back in 2H11 ahead of year-end FiT reductions.''
2. Oversupply
''Additionally, we expect oversupply conditions to return in 2011, as strong demand in 2H10 prompted aggressive capacity expansions, and much of the additional capacity will hit the market in 1H11. We believe the new capacity will lead to a supply/demand imbalance, eventually pressuring the price of downstream products.''
3. Silver lining
''Oversupply could result in renewed price pressure in 2011, but polysilicon and wafer should continue to have better pricing trends.We are concerned that the solar inverter space could swing from undersupply in 2010 to oversupply in 2011, resulting in a more competitive pricing environment for solar inverter companies.
We believe the leading c-Si producers will have fully-loaded costs approaching $1.10/W by the end of 2010, and most producers in low-cost regions will have costs of $1.20-1.40/W. With gross margins of 15-20 percent, we believe many players can sustain another 15-35 percent reduction in prices to $1.30-1.50/W.''
4. Germany slows
''Germany should continue to be the biggest solar market in the world in 2011, but after four years of very strong growth (55 percent CAGR) we expect German solar installations to decline 18 percent owing to lower FiT rates.''
5. Hot, cold markets
''Italy should be a very strong market in 2011. Czech Republic will see a big fall-off in demand in 2011, as it takes more drastic measures to reduce the favorable but unrealistic FiT subsidies that generate very high IRRs, in our view. France’s government is likely to enact a 'soft cap' to its subsidy program, which we believe will limit France to a 500MW per year installation rate. We see little to no growth for 2011 installations in France.
In the U.S., we are projecting solid growth in 2011, as a number of large-scale utility projects should start in 2011 and the U.S. commercial solar market should continue to grow. China should become an important solar market in 2011, as the country moves slowly from limited demonstration programs to wider adoption within the country.'' |
