The Sunday Times picked up that of the 178 Chinese Module manufacturers, around 80 have already ceased production as they cannot compete with the big manufacturers. They are predicting that only 4 or 5 Chinese Module Manufacturers will survive through 2012. Of course all of the other Global Module Manufacturers are having the same problems and it is likely that by the end of 2012 less than 30 in the World will survive and it will reduce further in 2013, probably down to less than 10.
It will make a mess of the MCS Product list!!
So be careful who your choosing, this goes back to some of the discussions I was having with people last year about using unknown brands with questionable warranties, a lot of the warranties offered by the smaller (by smaller I mean less than $1Billion T/O) will not be valid once the companies goes bump as a lot of the insurance that supposedly backed up these companies was on part turnover so once the company disappears so does the insurance. If you value your reputation you need to choose wisely.
The UK is only a very small player globally and so our influence on world market prices is non existant (hence we have also been charged premium prices over the last year) but a lot of the world markets are in just the same position as us, most governments have limited money and appetite to support expensive technologies like PV and the funds that were available are drying up hence the collapse in prices worldwide. Just wait and see what happens when the Italian Conto energia program runs out of money in Mid March/April time and the second biggest market in the world disappears over night!
