Maturing Industries (Short Infographic)

March 27th, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

We’ve already written about the fact that the solar industry is simply going through a maturation process, and that the “solar shakeout” is equivalent to what every major technology industry has gone through (click that link above for more on all that). Last week, however, Giles Parkinson shared a must-see graphic over on RenewEconomy when discussing the downfall of Suntech. It is below, preceded by Giles’ commentary:

Much has and will be written about the collapse of Suntech – once the poster child of the Chinese solar industry, once the world’s biggest manufacturer of solar panels, and once the extraordinary success story of Zhengrong Shi, an Australian researcher who went on to become the world’s first solar billionaire. The unravelling of Suntech is a personal disaster for Dr Shi, and probably a sad end to his bold venture. But if it didn’t happen to Suntech, it would have certainly happened to one of his major rivals, and possibly still will.

This story will likely be told over and over again in the solar sector. As this graph shows, there was once hundreds of car makers in the US before they consolidated into the big car makers, and a couple of niche players. There is nothing to suggest that it won’t happen in the China solar industry too.

In other words, Suntech’s crash shouldn’t deter anyone from going solar — it’s simply one of hundreds of solar module manufacturers, most of which won’t make it to 2050 (despite the fact that solar is almost guaranteed to by the #1 source of power by then).

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Tags: solar shakeout, Suntech

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

wattleberry

Whilst attrition will undoubtedly eliminate most having the temerity to dip an early foot in the water, there are of course the usual variations from what has gone before, including the much greater number of technical possibilities than existed with earlier developments such as steam, IC and even electric traction, plus the associated dependence on science input, sometimes at quite a low-key level, before ‘standard’ specifications are arrived at possessing the requisite longevity to allow the competing manufacturers to concentrate on the time-honoured process of maximising production efficiency and marketing.
At the moment the selection process is continuing on all fronts at a breakneck pace with no end in sight but such are the rewards lying ahead that we may well see appropriate designs emerge more rapidly than we can possibly envisage.
James Wimberley

The one worrying thing about the inevitable and healthy consolidation of the solar industry is the servicing of the warranties, typically 25 or 30 years, for panels sold by companies whose life expectancy is a third of their products’. The industry needs a collective guarantee fund to backstop insurance.