Solar Industry on a Roller Coaster Polysilicon spot prices have dipped below $40 per kg. Yesterday, summarizing insights gained from last week’s Solar Power International (SPI) conference, Mercom Capital Group forecast a “Poly Price Collapse”. Crisis? Or not? While poly production may not yet be in crisis, red ink in downstream PV module production has become a critical industry issue. Last week, Mehdi Hosseini of Susquehanna...

Boston Harbor - revolution birthplace The theme of last week’s Lux Executive Summit was innovation without borders. China was a focus, as was the topic of whether corporate venture capital and private venture capital can get along. Based upon the large number of corporate venture capital representatives, that question had a high degree of resonance with the attendees. According to Andrew Williamson from Physic Ventures, though, the...

Toronto Wind Icon By Adrienne Baker, Director, Canadian Clean Energy Conferences  A year and a bit into its ambitious feed-in tariff program, Ontario’s renewable energy industries are growing steadily but political uncertainty and grid expansion plans remain top concerns for manufacturers and developers alike. Since the launch of the FIT program in October 2009, several big wind and solar manufacturers have announced plans to set up or...

Game-changing Pillars. The need to stay market focused in technology development and get products quickly into customer hands translates to the Pillar of Process. Market requirements, corporate direction and technology options can all change quickly and must be tightly integrated with the development Process. For a new venture, the ability to predict market conditions is limited at best. Thus, rapid new product and process development...

The Solar Universe is Small The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) shocked the nascent Ontario PV industry on July 2 with plans to cut the tariff rate on small solar PV ground-mount systems by 27%, from 80.2 ¢/kWh to 58.8 ¢/kWh.     New Eligibility Criteria   Yesterday, August 25, as a follow-up to the finalized rate changes announced on August 13, the OPA provided a series of documents outlining New criteria developed to better define...