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US adds 2.7 GW of PV in H1 2015, full-year installs seen at 7.7 GW
Sep 9, 2015 | See Renewables
By Tsvetomira Tsanova
The US solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity grew by 1.4 GW in the second quarter (Q2) of 2015, and by 2.7 GW in total over the first half of the year. -
Chinese manufacturing rivals come to Yingli Green’s aid
Sep 9, 2015 | PV Tech
By Mark Osbourne
The precarious financial position of major tier-one PV manufacturer Yingli Green was further highlighted in its second quarter financial results and subsequent earnings call with financial analysts. -
Strong Q2 numbers show the increasing competitiveness of U.S. solar
Sep 9, 2015 | PV Magazine
By Christian Roselund
A record 5.3 GW of PV under construction in the United States reflects solar PV's increasing ability to compete with conventional power on price.
Industry News
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US adds 2.7 GW of PV in H1 2015, full-year installs seen at 7.7 GW
Sep 9, 2015 | See Renewables
By Tsvetomira Tsanova
The US solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity grew by 1.4 GW in the second quarter (Q2) of 2015, and by 2.7 GW in total over the first half of the year.
GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) said Tuesday the country’s cumulative PV capacity has surpassed 20 GW. Still, they trimmed their solar deployments forecast for 2015 to 7.7 GW, after projecting 7.9 GW in June. They still expect the residential segment to experienced the most rapid growth.
In Q2 the US added 473 MW of residential solar power capacity, up 70% year-on-year. Ten states installed over 10 MW each. The non-residential market, meanwhile, declined by 33% on the year, but stronger growth is expected in the second half of this year and beyond.
Total of 729 MW of utility-scale solar power plants also started operation in Q2 2015. GTM and SEIA said that with the planned reduction of the federal solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) from the start of 2017, utility-scale development is now at an all-time high with over 5.2 GW currently under construction.
“In the second half of this year through 2016, growth will reach new heights as a higher share of what comes online stems from projects procured purely based on centralised solar’s cost competitiveness,” said Shayle Kann, senior VP at GTM Research.
http://renewables.seenews.com/news/us-adds-2-7-gw-of-pv-in-h1-2015-full-year-installs-seen-at-7-7-gw-492110
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Chinese manufacturing rivals come to Yingli Green’s aid
Sep 9, 2015 | PV Tech
By Mark Osbourne
The precarious financial position of major tier-one PV manufacturer Yingli Green was further highlighted in its second quarter financial results and subsequent earnings call with financial analysts.
The company had slashed its third quarter and full-year PV module shipment guidance from a range of 3.6GW to 3.9GW to only 2.5GW to 2.8GW.
With PV module nameplate capacity unchanged from 2014 at 4GW, Yingli Green had an average quarterly run rate of 1,000MW, while it shipped 754MW in Q1, 729MW in Q2 and guided shipments of 550MW to 580MW for Q3. Taking full-year revised shipment guidance (mid-point Q3 and full-year) shipments in Q4 would be just over 600MW and full-year shipments of around 2,650MW.
PV Tech assessed that Yingli Green would have approximately 1,350MW of unused capacity in 2015, resulting in average utilisation rates of around 63% to 65% in 2015.
In comparison, major rivals, Trina Solar, JinkoSolar, Canadian Solar and JA Solar have been effectively operating at 100% utilisation rates Module tolling
However, Yingli Green management noted in its earnings call that it was working with an unspecified number of other Chinese PV manufacturers to provide tolling (OEM) module services to keep production utilisation rates as high as 90% through the second half of the year.
Described as ‘business partners’ rival firms were said to be providing the necessary materials (wafers, EVA, backsheet) to Yingli Green so that it preserved cash, while the company incurred costs such as electricity and labour only, indicating it was tolling rather being a sub-contractor.
Yiyu Wang, Yingli Green’s CFO said in the call: “The OEM payment term will almost like cash payments, because we don’t need to invest in the majority materials; the OEM partners will provide their materials. So, we just need to invest in some of the necessary cost components like electricity, labour and some small assets and the collection of these kind of OEM revenue will be very short, almost like a monthly collection which is very fast.”
Management also noted that the module tolling business would not be registered as shipments, but rather such tolling arrangements would be entered on to its balance sheet as ‘other income’.
The company reported second quarter ‘other income’ of US$14.07 million.
The purpose of the tolling, other than keeping utilisation rates high and therefore production costs as competitive as possible was the ability to generate cash from tolling much quicker than traditional modules sales.
Management said that payment for module tolling was almost instant, with monthly payments guaranteed.
As PV Tech has recently highlighted, Trina Solar, JinkoSolar, Canadian Solar and JA Solar, key companies that have joined a super league of manufacturers have guided shipments ahead of nameplate plate capacity in 2015, totalling around 1.5GW.
Yingli Green also said in the call that tolling orders could account for 20-30% of total production capacity in the third quarter, while 50-60% of production would be for self-orders.
“Regarding to the utilization ratio, in Q3 and Q4 from the orders perspective, we should have enough third-party sales orders to fully support our production utilization ratio, added Wang in the conference call. “However, given the current cash flow challenge, we plan to take some OEM orders which may represent around 20% to 30% of our total production capacity for Q3. And we plan to use roughly 50% to 60% of our total production capacity for our sales orders. Therefore, the average expected utilization ratio could be in the range from 70 to 90%, depends on the following part of the Q3, how everything [utilisation rates] goes up.”
However, although the module tolling would potentially keep utilisation rates high, management noted it would be forced to undertake a significant impairment charge study, using independent third parties on its large manufacturing assets.
This would lead to significant impairment charges on such long-lived assets that would have a serious material and adverse effect on the company.
Yingli Green had reported in its second quarter financial filings that property, plant and equipment assets were valued at US$11.68 billion.
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/chinese_manufacturing_rivals_come_to_yingli_greens_aid
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Strong Q2 numbers show the increasing competitiveness of U.S. solar
Sep 9, 2015 | PV Magazine
By Christian Roselund
A record 5.3 GW of PV under construction in the United States reflects solar PV's increasing ability to compete with conventional power on price.
GTM Research estimates that 40% of contracted PV capacity was procured for economic reasons.First Wind
GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) released their quarterly solar market data for the United States today, showing a slight growth in both sequential and year-over-year installations to 1.393 GW.
This is the seventh sequential quarter that the nation has installed more than 1 GW of solar, pushing cumulative installations to over 20 GW. Market volumes have reached a level that is nearly an order of magnitude higher than only five years ago.
Underneath these headline numbers, the trends for the U.S. market look even better. Residential solar installations grew to a record 473 MW, with steady growth quarter to quarter. And while completions of non-residential capacity fell again, GTM Research expects the market to bounce back, particularly in 2016.
Utility-scale solar made up the difference, and much more is on the way. GTM Research counts 16.7 GW of U.S. solar PV projects with signed power contracts, 5.3 GW of which is under construction. Of the total, roughly 2/5 has been procured not because of environmental mandates, but economic considerations.
“Forty percent of them have landed power purchase agreements primarily because those projects are competitive with natural gas alternatives,” said GTM Research Senior Solar Analyst Cory Honeyman, one of the report's authors.
“We've reached a point with the pricing of solar where it's not just being bought to meet some environmental mandate. An increasing portion is being procured because of its cost.”
GTM Research expects growth in all sectors throughout the end of the year, and has forecast that the nation will install 7.7 GW of solar over the course of 2017.
This growth is expected to intensify in 2016, as developers rush to get projects completed to beat the drop-down of the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) to 10% at the end of 2016.
And while a crash is anticipated in 2017 if the ITC is not extended, GTM Research says this will be temporary. The company expects residential solar in particular to continue its path of growth despite challenges to net metering policies, many of which are driven by utilities.
“Net metering and rate design battles have resulted in mostly favorable outcomes for residential solar,” notes Honeyman. “Utility attacks have largely either been rejected or they have resulted in minimal impact.”
“There is a strong case for resilience in residential solar economics.”
http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/strong-q2-numbers-show-the-increasing-competitiveness-of-us-solar_100021001/#ixzz3lFoRpF30
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