Sunpower/Panasonic prices...

[Energetic]

To the Sunpower Authorised Partners and Panasonic Premium Installers out there...

1. What do you think of the current pricing?

2. Are you selling any (or have you since March?)

3. Do these panels represent value at the moment given all their superior performance and build quality?

4. Last year, we as an industry were actively selling the benefits of these panels, is anyone doing so now?


We sold many Sanyo last year before becoming Sunpower partners and sold a few Sunpower up to feb. At last years pricing we felt they offered a good value high end alternative, this year we feel they are overpriced given the falls we have seen at the lower end of the market.

In the past we had customers stating 'I want the best' that doesn't seem to happen anymore...

So here are my answers to my own questions as an example...

1. Too High.
2. One Sunpower all black system in June, for aesthetic reasons.
3. No.
4. Trying to but nobody is interested once prices are mentioned.

 

[SRE]

We're the same as you - 50% of our jobs last year were Sanyo we don't even offer Panasonic anymore, customers can't work out the difference between the panels because everyone is telling them that their panels is the best. After loads of confusion they are going for the cheapest because if you don't understand the difference it's the least risk.

1.) Way too high
2.) Nothing since April
3.) No
4.) Gave up about 2 months ago

We still talk about them but don't even price anymore - I don't perceive them to provide value for money so would find it a hard sell to my customers.

 

[SolarCity]

1. What do you think of the current pricing?

Too high.

2. Are you selling any (or have you since March?)

Once - on a friends house. He is one of the main guys at Bet365 and has just moved into a £1.4million pound house. There are those that want the best and will pay for the best.

3. Do these panels represent value at the moment given all their superior performance and build quality?

Very rarely - they are handy if a customer insists on a 4kWp install and Sanyo is the only way to achieve it.

4. Last year, we as an industry were actively selling the benefits of these panels, is anyone doing so now?

Very rarely. We normally point out that they're overpriced in our opinion and that we can price for them if they would like.
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[Gavin A]

1 - significantly too high

2 - We sold 3 since March, but only because we had a pallet load in the warehouse and had to discount it heavily to get rid of them. The finances start to stack up again for a 4kW panasonic system vs a 3.5kW Hyundai or similar at around the £8k mark, but no matter what we do, at current prices we couldn't possibly sell at those prices as standard, only to clear the stock we had in the warehouse. The whole pricing strategy is stupid IMO, as their entire market must have dried up entirely, but they could get back to being relatively popular again if they just dropped their pricing to a level that allowed for £7.5-8k 4kW installation prices... which is still around £80-90 a panel more than Hyundai. Currently though they're £130 a panel more for the 250Wp panels, which is just an impossible pricing level to work with.

3 - No, absolutely not, and tbh I'm seriously worried about their business model, and that Panasonic might end up ditching it entirely if things don't pick up for them, all for the sake of maintaining their margins. Panasonic need to stick their money where their mouth is on this I reckon to regain the huge market share they had last year, when in the november rush they were the first to sell out entirely, and we must have done 6-7 x 40 panel pallets of them in 6 weeks.

4 - We were able to easily sell the benefits to anyone with a smaller than 9m roof in terms of getting a marginally higher rate of return from the 4kWp Sanyo system vs the 3.2-3.5kWp mono / poly system they could fit on, particularly once you took into account around 5% a year improved output that we estimate is about right for the HIT panels. The figures simply don't stack up that way now, so we still quote for them as an option, but 95% are now going for Hyundai instead of Sanyo, vs about 75/25% for the sanyos last year.

also the rebranding from Sanyo to Panasonic was utterly stupid given that Sanyo had become probably the best known premium brand in the market in the UK.

 

[Eco Deal]

sold one sanyo system in 2012 !!!!

i even tell customers to forget about them

 

[Energetic]

Thanks for your thoughts on this. We've been telling Sunpower this for the last few months and they dont seem to get it... We've given up trying...

Sanyo / Sunpower must be feeling it at the moment, i just couldn't understand who would be buying them at current prices but they do not seem to be affected enough to drop them further.

It seems this time last year we were all doing 50+% which has now dropped down to 5% at best, thats got to hurt...

 

[Eco Deal]

uk is a small market worldwide I guess

 

[Gavin A]

something like 2-3% of the global market last year, so not huge, but not insignificant - around 6-8th biggest market globally last year.

The same must surely be applying elsewhere anyway, as the same commercial logic applies whatever the FIT rates, as it's based on the price differential between quality mono panels, and sanyo / sunpower being greater than can be justified by their improved efficiency and performance per kWp

 

[Worcester]

Panels suddenly don't cost less to manufacture this year than they did last year by the sums that we are talking, they have always pitched prices to the local market based on market conditions e.g. the FIT rate, - We bought container loads of panels last year and shipped them around the world ourselves buying at significantly different prices than was available when officially bound for the UK

What always amazed me was why the Chinese even bothered with the UK compared to the size of rest of the worldwide market place, and it was simple - the price people were prepared to pay.... to make the some money in other markets they had to sell (and make) significantly more product than they needed to in the UK. As a market place, the UK really is insignificant - remember trying to get hold of SMA inverters last November / December - crazy for such a small market place - we didn't even command a board level discussion on supply within SMA.. - Shoot some suppliers even re-shipped them from Australia!

 

[Energetic]

I feel pretty insignificant at the moment, cheers me up when i get one of those emails from a chinese supplier offering me multiple container loads...

 

[Worcester]

Cheer up someone said, things could be worse ... :clap:

Lo and behold I cheered up and .... things got worse :6:

 

[MorganPVI]

Sanyo / Pana will remain expensive in Europe because of the high Japanese FIT, demand in Japan will sky rocket and cell exports to the Hungarian factory will not be a priority.

 

[Worcester]

Most of the systems in Japan are also smaller than Eu and tend to be domestic scaled, US and Japan are the two largest markets for Enecsys.