Solar Shortages Looming With Boom in Worldwide Demand

June 5th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

First Solar, the world’s cheapest solar panel maker, is reporting that they cannot meet this years demand for solar panels, and three more major manufacturers; Suntech, Yingli and Trina are also signaling that they are sold out, according to Reuters.

This is a huge turnabout. It is only a year ago that solar panels flooded the global market, driving down the cost of solar installations worldwide, after Spain suddenly eased off on its generous Feed-in Tariff, leading to a worldwide solar panel glut and a resulting 40% drop in panel prices.

[social_buttons]

The benefits of that suddenly cheap solar has had a huge impact. California alone installed as much solar in the first three months as it did in all of last year, at least in part due to cheap panels.

But now it appears that prices might rise again, due to ricocheting demand.

First Solar is having to postpone projects in the United States to meet demand in Europe, supplying growing markets in France, Spain and Italy, as well as in China and Australia.

As we enter the Peak Oil years and start the very bumpy slide down the other side of Hubbert’s Peak, this kind of increased competition for all sources of energy is increasingly likely.

If you have been on the fence about getting your own solar, whether you’ve been procrastinating on buying solar, or just signing up for power by the kilowatt-hour – it is clearly time to move fast before prices skyrocket… or lose out.

And when you do grab that forty-year supply of your own energy – don’t forget to include some additional electrons to charge that new electric vehicle that will keep you flying free on future freeways while others sputter along on the last drops of dangerous and dirty oil.

Solar estimators say for every 10,000 miles that you’ll drive annually, you should plan on including about 250 extra kilowatt-hours a month for charging an electric car. So, if you drive 5,000 miles annually, you’d need 125 kilowatt-hours a month to power that Volt, LEAF, TH!INK, or whatever, or about as much as to power a swimming pool pump.

Image: Flikr user amcoop

Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.

Tags: cheap, glut, shortage

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

Impact

Boom Shortage – How You Can Help!

Volunteers continue to donate warehouses, hair, nylons and their time to make hair booms. Until now, the hair booms were being sent to LA and AL. Recently, Ft. Myers marinas and area businesses are stockpiling the free hair booms. With the potential shortage of booms, it’s time to take the hair booms seriously!

Check out this comparison of the BP booms vs hair booms, taped in LA in Mar

BP is not using the hair boom because of a comparison done in Feb before the spill …Has anyone seen that video?

The BP boom is made of synthetics, in part, petroleum… another revenue stream for BP?

Another challenge was that the hair booms sank. Pics of the hair booms soaking up oil in the gulf, being floated by donated buoys and shrimp nets not sinking:

http://matteroftrust.org/programs/hai…

Uf the oil comes up on our shores we need surface as well as below the surface booming. The hair booms would work with less bouy floatation.

Recently, Matter Of Trust has had to temporarily stop the hair donations. It’s because our warehouses are full! We have so much hair that we have to convert into booms and have used up most of our donated space. In the Ft. Myers warehouse, most of the volunteers are all business owners who can only volunteer on the weekends. As soon as we convert the hair into booms, the collections will start up again.

We have and will continue to be there every weekend, for however long it takes. If you would like to help volunteer contact http://www.MatterOfTrust.org or send a message back.

We can make a difference, if we try!

.
Tom

I installed 5.6kW pv in 2008 at an out of pocket cost of $20,000.00 after $2000.00 tax credit and $14,500.00 rebate from a ratepayer financed fund managed by the local utility. Panel costs are now about 40% lower, and a full 30% tax credit is available rather than the $2000.00 cap that was in place in 2008. Pay back time in a sunny state must be less than 10 years now if you do most of the install yourself. I did. It took 3 days. Could do it in two now. The utility required a local contractor to do the final hook up to the main service panel.

These panels provide all the electric for our house and an electric car. The car uses about 0.2kWh per mile. The panels supply enough electric on average to travel about 50 miles per day, plus supply the house. I expect a Leaf would use around 0.225 to 0.250kWh per mile.
Beavker

Sounds like a good thing for our friends in the Oil and Gas industry to use those gigantic profits to get into, huh? BP, among others, claim to be “Energy” companies. Well, supply energy, energy that doesn’t kill our ecosystem. Don’t just make commercials telling us out cutting edge you are. Do it.

[SK: ….and – interestingly, BP just got out of a small US solar market segment (BIPV) they were really good at! The guy who is going to install our solar told me that some people really prefer the BIPV slates to panels, aesthetically, and they used to buy them from BP, but no more, because BP says they “can get more money for them in Europe.”It was really dumb to abandon that business.]
Pelle

Solargen; I recommend Q-cells own panels Q-base multi crystalline or their Q-smart CIGS (solibro). Best quality I´ve seen.
Oia

Why does the article say you get a 40 year lock-in with solar panels? As far as I know most panels only last 20-25 years.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  @ Oia The 25 yrs is about warranty only.
  
  Panel manufacturers warranty the output of each panel when it is manufactured, but they lose a little bit every year – 1/2 a percent. That doesn’t amount to much but by 25 years its making 12+1/2 percent less electricity, so if it was say a small 100 watt panel, then in 2035, the 100 watt panel is now an 87.5 watt panel. By agreement once the 10% mark is bridged, then it cannot be warranteed to be still 100%.
  
  Therefor the manufacturer can’t claim its still a 100 watt panel in 2035:when it becomes an 87.5 watt panel.
  
  By 40 years old the panel will have reduced its power output further – at 1/2 percent a year, it will have lost 20% – to 80% of the original rating, or now an 80 watt panel in 2050.
  
  That doesn’t mean its not making power. It is still producing 80% of the original power in 2050, after 40 years.
  
  It is likely that the efficiency of appliances in the house will have improved 12% by 2035, and 20% by 2050 anyway; so it will likely still make the same percentage of the power used in the house. But the manufacturer in 2010 can’t claim it will still be a 100 watt panel in 2050.
http://www.vivzizi.com Vivzizi

a simple way to make one panel do the work of nearly two is to surround one with a mirror doubling the light on it while keeping the panel in a water bath to prevent heat rise efficiency losses.

vivzizi

[SK: wow -that is a very intriguing concept – hard to do at the typical 22 degree angle, though, but since so often PV has to compete for roofspace with a solar hot water system to heat the pool, worth trying to figure it out ! It would be a happy marriage of the two -synergistic.]
The Trutherizer

I love news like this! I knew it was going to be this way. New markets! Clean environment! Better life! Bring on solar!
http://www.solarpanelrebate.com.au SolarGen

I hope you’re right J. Here in Australia getting a solid supply of panels is a major effort in itself. We have just sent two of our staff on a 2 week dash around the globe to source out a regular supply of panels.
Christof

Susan,

It’s nice to see you — and Clean Technica — actively promoting solar-charged driving. We just had a 5.5 kW system put up on our Colorado roof last week (got a great deal, $8500 out of pocket cost thanks to us locking in a $3.50 per watt utility rebate by signing up for the system last fall).

Now, we have to wait what is looking like it might be close to two years for the Nissan LEAF or another EV to actually be offered in the Colorado market.

–Christof Demont-Heinrich

Editor, SolarChargedDriving.Com
J

I’m sure these problems will work their way out.

More demand will spur existing companies to expand and new companies to enter the market. New developments in efficiency, installation, components and storage will continue to advance.

More and more people will have access and this will spur further demand and the cycle goes on.