flacaltenn
Diamond Member
Why is a company with severe manufacturing quality issues, slowing world sales and recent plant closings and layoffs getting BILLIONS in US Loan Guaranties and MILLIONS in hard cash handouts?
It's probably because of WHO is invested in this company and the fact that Obama NEEDS a success in the renewable handouts he's addicted to..
So the CANADIANS are getting a solar plant backed and paid for by US taxpayers if the Shaky First Solar bites the dust. Why is tossing all this money at First Solar a very risky move? Has nothing to do with cheap Chinese imports, it's mostly internal to the company.
Germany a cool-weather country has no more loot for them so they a take a product that has had large THERMAL PROBLEMS to 3 desert installations in the US..
What could go wrong?? It's ONLY $3Bill.. Tomorrow -- a list of the POLITICAL connections you need to get a deal like this one....
It's probably because of WHO is invested in this company and the fact that Obama NEEDS a success in the renewable handouts he's addicted to..
U.S. Pays First Solar To Buy Its Own Panels As Europe Scales Back Subsidies
First Solar is an Arizona-based manufacturer of solar panels. In 2010, the Obama administration awarded the company $16.3 million to expand its factory in Ohio — a subsidy Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland touted in his failed re-election bid that year.
Five weeks before the 2010 election, Strickland announced more than a million dollars in job training grants to First Solar. The Ohio Department of Development also lent First Solar $5 million, and the state’s Air Quality Development Authority gave the company an additional $10 million loan.
After First Solar pocketed this $17.3 million in government grants and $15 million in government loans, Ex-Im entered the scene.
In September 2011, Ex-Im <export-import bank> approved $455.7 million in loan guarantees to subsidize the sale of solar panels to two wind farms in Canada. That means if the wind farm ever defaults, the taxpayers pick up the tab, ensuring First Solar gets paid.
But the buyer, in this case, was First Solar.
A small corporation called St. Clair Solar owned the wind farm and was the Canadian company buying First Solar’s panels. But St. Clair Solar was a wholly owned subsidiary of First Solar. So, basically, First Solar was shipping its own solar panels from Ohio to a solar farm it owned in Canada, and the U.S. taxpayers were subsidizing this “export.”
Meanwhile from the Washington Post, we learn that across Europe, countries are cutting once-lavish subsidies to solar industries. Why? Because solar power is highly inefficient and cannot survive without the subsidies.
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The subsidies for renewable energy cost German consumers about $14 a month for a family of four. Companies that generate renewable energy get a guaranteed above-market rate for 20 years. In Schlicht’s case, the owner of the building will get a cut of the proceeds in exchange for giving over part of the roof to Geosol.
Though solar energy supplied 3.1% of Germany’s electricity needs in 2011 — hampered in part by the country’s famously dreary weather — the industry consumed closer to half of the overall renewable subsidies, which also support other energy sources such as wind and biomass. It’s something to bear in mind the next time a U.S. politician or policy wonk says we should learn from the policies of our European cousins. We should, including their mistakes.
Follow Sean Higgins on Twitter: @SeanGHiggins
So the CANADIANS are getting a solar plant backed and paid for by US taxpayers if the Shaky First Solar bites the dust. Why is tossing all this money at First Solar a very risky move? Has nothing to do with cheap Chinese imports, it's mostly internal to the company.
First Solar replacing more solar panels
Tempe-based First Solar Inc. said this week it is making more warranty replacements of its solar panels in hot climates than expected, just as it is building billions of dollars worth of power plants in the desert Southwest.
First Solar took a $37 million fourth-quarter charge to set aside money to handle potential warranty claims related to temperature, and plans on setting aside a larger portion of its sales going forward to cover warranty expenses.Officials said the discovery occurred as First Solar is shifting its business from overcast and even cool markets in Germany, Italy, France and Spain to places like California, Arizona, India, China and Australia.
It is common knowledge in the solar industry that solar panels, both the traditional crystal-silicon panels and the "thin-film" panels that First Solar makes, produce less electricity the hotter it gets. The problem is not that they don't produce electricity at all in extreme heat, just that their maximum output decreases as the temperature increases.
First Solar is building projects in some of the hottest places in the nation, including Yuma County, where the company is building a 290-megawatt power plant.
The Agua Caliente plant snared a $967 million loan from the Federal Financing Bank, and the loan is guaranteed through the U.S. Energy Department.
First Solar also has a 550-megawatt plant named Desert Sunlight underway in Riverside County, Calif. that got $1.46 billion in loans from an investor group, and the Energy Department is partially guaranteeing those funds.
And it has a 230-megawatt plant, Antelope Valley Solar Ranch, underway in Los Angeles County, Calif., that got a $646 million loan guarantee.
A First Solar official said he was confident the Energy Department funded projects were not at risk because of the heat issues.
"We are fully confident the plants are designed robustly to meet their performance targets," spokesman Ted Meyer said.
First solar spent $125.8 million in the last quarter replacing faulty panels it made in 2008 and 2009, but most of those went to temperate places in Europe, and were not likely related to temperature, officials said. The company went beyond its warranty obligations replacing those panels, officials said. First Solar officials said their problems have been with older solar panel models and that they have moved on to the next generation of solar panels.
Analyst Chris Kettenmann of Miller Tabak and Co. asked company executives for more details on the heat-related problems, but did't get many.
"Well, at this time, we don't have a lot of data," interim CEO Michael Ahearn said.
He said that it is known that solar panels degrade faster in hot climates, and the company tests its panels for extreme heat.
"We just started really shifting the mix into hotter climates in the last couple years," he said. "So we'll have to continue to reevaluate it as we see results, get more data."
Read more: First Solar replacing more solar panels
Germany a cool-weather country has no more loot for them so they a take a product that has had large THERMAL PROBLEMS to 3 desert installations in the US..
What could go wrong?? It's ONLY $3Bill.. Tomorrow -- a list of the POLITICAL connections you need to get a deal like this one....
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