Small SME,s Fight back who's IN?

[moggy1968]

BY August 2010 there was a massive oversupply. too many people jumping on the bandwagon, like all goldrushes! Just as well, given what happened in November! Even so, despite the number of installs steadilly increasing towards Aug 2010, prices were coming down while the FiT stayed the same.

Name an industry not driven on price? almost all of them. Did you buy the cheapest car you could with no extras, the cheapest sofa, the cheapest house, the cheapest cooker? no, of course not, you bought the stuff you wanted because of what it offered you in VALUE, and thats very different to price.

renewables are being put on new builds, the trouble is the amount is laughable. It should be an amount that reflects the energy consumption of the house, so for example a 4 bed detached it should be 3000kWhr/yr, for a 2 bed terrace, maybe 1800.

the amounts being put on at the moment don't even come close to making the house carbon neutral, which should be the aim

 

[SibertSolar]

C'mon now guys.....you're both right, in lots of ways, it's a combination of the points being made. Bear in mind that the impact on European landed prices from Asian manufacturers was not especially driven by the UK market - earlier collapses in Spain, Italy and Germany had a much more profound effect on Asian pricing....we just rode on the coat-tails somewhat....it is true that reduced demand affected the supply/demand/costs from Asian manufacturers and its also true that country-specific pricing is affected by that country's FiT mechanisms.

One thing to note about the Chinese government - they got their noses out of joint a good few years back when they lost out on being the global leader in semiconductor design/manufacturing (yes, they are huge consumers but little to no design technology ownership) so they really didn't want to lose out again this time (PV cells are effectively semiconductors, right?) and they will move through hell or high water to achieve their aims. They are probably the best in the world at manipulating a market to meet their own ends, as we've seen with the somewhat dubious propping up of their own manufacturing base whilst allowing hundreds of smaller outfits to collapse or be consumed by larger fish - Darwin's theory in action over there at the moment. They do this very well and the renewables industry is not the first sector they've demonstrated this with. Their communistic management allows them to manipulate global supply/demand trends for mass-produced product that they excel in producing, that's just the way it goes.

 

[moggy1968]

pretty much like I said, which is why European markets need protection from the false market economy of china.

beware the red tide, quick, the commie hordes are coming RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!:41:

 

[Gavin A]

BY August 2010 there was a massive oversupply. too many people jumping on the bandwagon, like all goldrushes! Just as well, given what happened in November! Even so, despite the number of installs steadilly increasing towards Aug 2010, prices were coming down while the FiT stayed the same.

Name an industry not driven on price? almost all of them. Did you buy the cheapest car you could with no extras, the cheapest sofa, the cheapest house, the cheapest cooker? no, of course not, you bought the stuff you wanted because of what it offered you in VALUE, and thats very different to price.

renewables are being put on new builds, the trouble is the amount is laughable. It should be an amount that reflects the energy consumption of the house, so for example a 4 bed detached it should be 3000kWhr/yr, for a 2 bed terrace, maybe 1800.

the amounts being put on at the moment don't even come close to making the house carbon neutral, which should be the aim

actually I disagree a bit on new builds.

There is a finite amount of transformer capacity for a new build development, so it'd often be the case that the allowable size per house could be around 1.5-2kW by the DNO, regardless of other considerations, and if on site energy savings is the key, then the majority of these are already covered by a 1kWp system, with the bigger systems only savings relatively small amounts of energy proportionally.

 

[moggy1968]

thats because our DNOs don't want PV. I'm sure it's not beyond the wit of man to overcome this, just the will of the DNOs

 

[Gavin A]

most SME's do not trade direct with China. We buy directly from European Suppliers who stock chinese stuff. The EU has to protect it's manufacturing or it will have none left (a bit like the UK!)
The artificially low price of panels from china is one of the things that has caused such drastic reductions in the feed in tariff. many European and American manufacturers are now going into liquidation or facing liquidation because they cannot compete with Chinese Government subsidised sweat shops staffed by people on poverty wages with no concern for H&S.
And what do you suppose will happen once all those European and American companies have been run out of business by the artificially priced Chinese, well, the price will go up again of course, because then they'll have a monopoly on the market place and can do what they like. And I can guarantee you the feed in tariff won't go up to compensate for it. Then you'll really have something to moan about instead moaning about not wanting to pay a fair price for your supplies. The only problem with this ban on dumping is it's about 2 years too late for us.

China is killing the rest of the worlds industries with it's price dumping, wake up and smell the coffee for chrissake!!

Disagree.

China is forcing the price down to a point where it's close to or at grid parity in a lot of places, which is the aim of the entire game we're in right now, and once that is achieved then the sky is the limit for installations worldwide regardless of government actions - as long as they remove all barriers to installs and allow net metering.

The EU trade tariffs will only result in EU companies being uncompetitive in the rest of the world with Chinese panels, so we'll be left with expensive EU panels only to be used in the EU market, while china goes on to supply the entire rest of the world, and the EU companies end up going bust anyway as they can't survive on a dwindling EU market (dwindling due to high prices and low support).

Compete or die, and if Romag can compete then so can other EU manufacturers if they trim out all the costs that aren't needed - eg solarworld trying to force everyone to pay for their in house design team within the panel price even if you don't want or need that service.

It's shutting the stable door stuff anyway, if this was needed then it was needed 18 months ago, sod all point after half the industry has gone bust, and the other half have mostly found ways to adapt.

 

[moggy1968]

As you may have guessed, I don't agree. The price is being kept artificially low by Government subsidy and thats unsustainable in the long term. It's a false market and once the Chinese have squeezed out the opposition prices will rise as they start to fill their own pockets, and once the standards of living start to improve and once they start to bring in more environmental manufacturing processes (if they ever do) the prices will rise even more.

we won't reach grid parity because of falling prices. we will reach grid parity because of rising energy prices. My house is all electric and it's already there if I can get an 8kW system in.

The only way to stop Chinese domination of the market is to protect our own manufacturers by trying to make the playing field more level.

 

[jason121]

One of the companies involved in anti dumping campaign was Solar world

 

[Gavin A]

One of the companies involved in anti dumping campaign was Solar world

I know, they were boasting about it to me - they were one of the prime movers in the US as well.

 

[finchy]

Getting back to the original post I must have missed all the media at tension from Mr barker and his adviser. 6 months on he has weathered it well enough. Can't believe the level of conflict interest.

 

[Earthstore]

I am going to be brave and pop my head up here.
Maybe, just maybe, the Chinese government have got things right, and the EU has got it all wrong? (except for the total lack of H&S, where as ours is too far the other way).