Uni-Solar Plans to Lay Off 400

Shocker.  Going forward look for the execs to milk every last penny from this dead pig before they exit.  This thing’s a ZERO bid.

To ECD Fan1:  How exactly do I constantly criticize ECD?  All I did was point out Mr. Guha’s statement, the one he made in 2002. How was that a bad spin?  Is Unisolar’s product competitive with conventional fuels today, as promised, or not?

Unisolar’s product is not unique, not at all.  Xunlight, Flexcell, Powerfilm, Ascent, Global Solar, Konarka - all these offer flexible PV “laminates.” And, of course, Lumeta and Open Energy glue crystalline cells to flexible membranes.

Unisolar did indeed have a great time for a few months in 2008 when the Spanish bubble raged and when crystalline was input-constrained - greedy people were buying anything that even remotely resembled PV.  But these times are gone.  Unisolar’s problems have nothing to do with the economy - they have everything to do with Unisolar’s technology and manufacturing costs.  First Solar, SunPower, and the reputable Chinese crystalline module makers were all profitable in the September 2009 quarter and showed year-over-year revenue growth.  Not Unisolar.  The solar market has already returned, but Unisolar is firing 20% of its workforce.

Hopefully they will pull out of it, although… there is so little support for US Industry.

EDC Fan has been much nicer to EDC lately…must be done shorting their stock.

Yes, track back to EDC Fan..anonymous website chocked with specious info - classic FUD strategy. Faulty use of detail in this case…

This person has also been known to email EDC’s customers directly when they make an press announcement—“Oh by the way did you know…blah, blah, blah,” for pages with no real point whatsoever except to scare the be-jesus out of them.

Don’t forums ban this kind of behavior?

Why won’t Uni-Solar allocate loans for their employeees and customers?  C-mon, let’s get real!

i just found this cause I use Uni-Solar panels on my little jungle cabin in the rainforest-hawaii. so cloudy out here that some solar “professional” told me pv doesn’t work here (for his rental, he doesnt really support pv or do research, you see). My panels chug away even when its pouring.

also, i benefitted from a recent trade on ENER stock. i know, the fundamentals aren’t there :) i just believe the head guy inventor has good ideas :)

I´ve been following this discussion from the time it started, and I can´t agree with everything said here. It´s about time that I vent my opinions . I am personally involved in selling Unisolar in Europe, and I had to make a business case out of it, finding out everything about pro´s and con´s. And I´ve found a lot of good stuff for the product. 1. there is no alternative in BIPV when it comes to covering a roof with a sturdy, if needed even watertight material - every other mono or poly or CIGS or CdTe or a-Si product is either delivered behind glass, or the manufacturer is so small that it´s not worth thinking about it. 2. Unisolar with a steel backing (ThyssenKrupp Solartec) is the only product I´ve found that is walkable, that can be installed without any mounting system, is therefore immune re. windforce etc. If the wind blows your roof away, your pv system will be gone too, but everybody can deal with that, 3. even with the low efficiency of around 6,3 % under STC, in real world conditions th product delivers 15-20 % more energy yield at the end of the year than mono or poly - I have collected dozens of case studies from Unisolar, where well known institutions and labs have tested, and confirmed the facts. I have Unisolar installations in Germany that deliver a specific result of about 1000 kWh per installed kW/p - for Germany a really good value. Mono or poly doesn´t do any better, most do worse. First Solar could be the winner in this comparison, because they have good results and are quite cheap, but again they are behind glass - but don´t forget the impact of cadmium. 4. In Spain, with almost double the irradiance than Germany, temperature in the module are a lot higher, and Unisolar again delivers more energy because of the lower temp. coefficient, 5. Low light conditions - again advantage Unisolar. 6. Shading (partial) has almost no effect - contrary to poly or mono. 7. Rain - the same. 8. the ability to cover whole facades with the product - and get good results ! 9. Orientation and tilt angle - very little efect compared to mono or poly etc.  I could name a few more, but the point is - despite low efficiency and higher price (never forget that you can not put the laminate on your roof and that´s it - you have to have a certified backing material - steel, alu, plastic foil etc. in order to get a “product” that you can install), all that counts is : “how much money did my ystem make at the end of the day/month/Year?” If that count is better than poly or mono, and the safety is higher, advantages re. walkability, rain tightness, roof improvements, thermal isolation against heat or cold are taken into consideration there is no better solution on the market - yet. I am not talking about pv-shingles or other funy stuff that don´t make sense to me - I am talking about industrial installations on roofs. Neither Konarka nor Fuji nor Flexcell nor anybody else is at the point were they can deliver the same that Unisolar does - not yet. So, unil someone points out a new contender I will stick with the product - right now there is no alternative. And in the case that we are fixing an older building, and we take away the cost for replacing the roof alone, all the sudden the pv-laminate is not so much other all. Unisolar prices have come down quite a bit in the last 12 months, thanks to the credit crisis and the non-existing spanish market, and the fact that everybody else is lowering their prices . That is the only thing that troubles me-USO has to sell product at a loss, in order to get the company going. And nobody to this day could explain to me why the stuff is so frigging expensive to produce in the roll-to-roll process - compare that to poly modules, the whole process - ingots, wafers, cell cutting, sizing, soldering, testing, laminating, glass, alu frame etc. That stuff should be much more than a-Si thin film. Imagine what would happen if Unisolar could deliver 500 MW instead of the meagre 50 MW or so they have done this year - what the cost per W woudl be then, and wht acceptance they would receive ! But here lies a mayor problem with USO-there is almost no advertising, no marketing, very little information, no support - I don´t know what they want or plan. Maybe you out there know, and can enlighten me.

Dear Thomas Stein:

You have been brainwashed.  In your overzealous quest to sell Unisolar, you have fallen a victim to fraudulent research and marketing.  Point-by-point:

1.  Glass PV is perfect for roofs.  Solutions like s-5! clamps are ideal for metal roofs, while solutions like First Solar’s rack system or SunPower’s T5 are ideal for flat roofs, as proven by the CSI data.  Gluing any PV (be it flexible, like Unisolar, or crystalline, like Lumeta and Applied Solar) saves you a rack (up to 30c per Watt) but it is a fire hazard (despite what UL says, as proven by the Long Beach Convention Center fire), and leads to higher installation costs, difficulties in roof repair, and underperformance due to suboptimal tilt and overheating,  And of course, the low-efficiency Unisolar laminates (as you point out, 6.3% on module level for PVL-136) have BOS costs (excluding the racks) that are higher by at least 25c per Watt vs First Solar and at least 40c per Watt vs crystalline.

2.  Unisolar on metal is a dangerous product (the laminates slid on the roof of the Science House in St Paul, MN in 2004, causing a ground fault, per ASHRAE).  Walking on the bypass diodes or the wiring is a recipe for disaster, as well.  Glass PV on S-5! clamps is a more reliable and wind-resistant solution (the clamps strengthen the roof) and allow for ventilation and proper tilt, which improves performance.

3.  In real world conditions, Unisolar DOES NOT “deliver 15-20 % more energy yield at the end of the year than mono or poly.”  In the real world, Unisolar laminates are tilted suboptimally and overheat due to lack of ventilation, thus delivering no more than 5% better kWh/kW vs optimally tilted crystalline, and only in the first few years, before the severe long-term degradation kicks in and eliminates any performance advantage.  The research you have “collected” is likely fraudulent. For example, the so-called 2006 “Technologie-Report,” specifically page 7, is fraudulent.  And so are the Santa Cruz study (the Kyocera panels were intentionally crippled),  the Tucson study (the framed Unisolar panels used there were ventilated and optimally tilted, unlike the laminates that are currently sold), the Bolzano study (ThyssenKrupp’s summary of the data contradicts Unisolar’s report of the data), etc.  High-profile installations such as the 12MW GM Opel in Spain, the 400KW Staples installation in CT, the 700KW East Coast Warehouse in NJ, and, of course, the 750KW Long Beach Convention Center installation in CA are either dead or underperperforming vs expectation, based on reported data from the remote monitoring systems.  Unisolar is actively suppressing the results of the NREL’s long-term degradation study which indicated likely warranty violation within 10 years.  But you are welcome to provide actual data from systems in Germany (or elsewhere) to prove that the Unisolar systems do in fact overperform and can survive at least 10 years - note that Unisolar supposedly produced about 10MW combined in the years 1999 and 2000 (using the same a-Si triple junction technology as today’s) - are you aware of even one Unisolar system that has survived 10 years and is still performing within warranted parameters?
4.  No, in Spain, Unisolar laminates underpeform due to lack of ventilation and suboptimal tilt, as proven by the fatspaniel data from the 12MW GM Opel installation in Zaragoza. 

5.  No, real world results of systems operating in low light conditions indicate that Unisolar underperforms vs optimally tilted crystalline (as low light usually means lower temperature as well)

6.  Any panel, including poly and mono, with bypass diodes can survive partial shading as successfully as Unisolar’s lmainates.

7.  Rain is the enemy of Unisolar laminates, particularly on flat roofs.  The warranty specifically excludes “damage due to water pooling on the PV Product surface or any evidence thereof.”  Tilted glass PV panels, of course, face no such danger.

8.  PV on facades is a waste of material due to the suboptimal tilt and overheating.

9.  Orientation and tilt angle both have significant effects on Unisolar’s performance.  For example, the Santa Cruz, CA data indicate about 25%-30% annual underperformance of the glued-on laminates vs the tilted framed Unisolar product using the same PV material.

(continued)

(continued)

So, to reiterate, Unisolar’s systems underpeform glass PV in terms of kWh/kW, particularly after the long-term degradation kicks in, due to lack of ventilation, suboptimal tilt, and rough plastic surface that attracts dust, soot, and snow.  And Unisolar’s all-in system costs per Watt are still higher than those of First Solar or Chinese crystalline, due to overpriced panels and higher BOS costs caused by the lower-efficiency (the savings from the lack of rack are simply not enough to compensate).  Thus, Unisolar laminates on industrial roofs do not make sense at current prices (Unisolar’s factory prices, or ASPs,  are guided for $2.10 per Watt for the December quarter, while Chinese crystalline prices are about $2.00 per Watt).  To make sense for industrial roofs, Unisolar laminates have to be priced below $1.70, or so, per Watt today.  Unisolar’s cost of manufacturing in the December quarter are guided over $2.20 per Watt - so, yes, it appears that Unisolar is selling a gross loss and will do so in the foreseeable future.  If they lower prices to become competitive, they will be selling at an even bigger loss, while the reputable module companies are profitable.  Unisolar’s high costs are inherent - increase in scale is not going to help them.  In 2005, Unisolar was making and shipping more MWs that First Solar, yet, their costs were double vs First Solar’s, per Watt.  Today, Unisolar’s costs are more than double those of First Solar, per Watt, and are higher than even crystalline’s.  No wonder Unisolar’s shipments are shrinking and the company is firing 25% of its workforce (and all these big MW announcements appear simply an inventory flush) .

So, now, are you enlightened?

Dear ECD Fan, I was expecting that or a similar return. You are right in some points, but not in all. Dont´t think I´ve been brainwashed, but I work in the spanish market - try to sell any cristalline module there right now, and you know what I´m talking about. There are installation companies that have no idea what to sell. banks and clients are rejecting cristalline. Due to the extremely poor performance and problems standing the severe heat that some of the cristalline installations from 2007 and 2008 show, they will not even be considered by most installers - even the spanish government is talking about rejecting these installations - especially ground mounted. In the last severe storms in 2008 several cristalline installatins were simply blown off the roof - try to figure yourself in the middle of that. May the reason for that have been incompetence on part of the installer, or incorrect calculations by the architect or whatever- these things will not satisfy any client or installer in markets like Spain anymore. Yes, there are still several big installations currently under way, and they mostly use crsitalline or thin film because for lack of alternatives, but that is not what the commercial market will accept.
And are you seriously trying to tell me that a system of aluminium or steel racks with glass panels in aluminum frames will strenghten the roof because the clamps will hold it together ? Come on, get serious ! Most roofs in southern European countries are less stable than their counterparts in the northern countries. Installing Unisolar (or any other product) with a steel backing directly onto the roof will strenghten the roof, but not installing wind sensitive structures that are screwed on and actually increase the force applied to the roof when its windy.
And the installation in Spain at the GM plant had better be done by somebody who knows his business - all of Spain is talking about this. The modules were shorted because they were mounted flat on the roof, without tilt or not enought tilt, so water collected there and shorted most connections - because, yes, it does rain in Spain, and quite often so. USO mandates a minimum tilt angle of 3 Dregrees, better 5. And because the installer tried to glue the stuff directly onto the roof material, failure was pre-programmed. I dont know what´s going to happen there, but that roof is certainly not a reference for anybody. But there are dozens of others. And Unisolar on metal is dangerours. hm. Do you think ThyssenKrupp knows that ? Maybe you should enlighten them. Then they better remove all their facade panels at the factory (check their website), before they cause trouble.
What it all comes down to is simple : lack of care or experience or failure to stick to manufacturers guidelines can cause trouble to any installation - be it cristalline or thin film. Unisolar glued to a steel panel under incorrect conditions will lead to a failure - no question. But don´t blame the product, blame the installer.
And yes, I know all the facts on USO- thanks to the information you provided earlier. You seem to have excellent access to inside information. That´s perfect, since it has helped me already a lot. 

So, I am afraid I was not enlightened, but I am open to look at fraudulent data you have. If you are right, I will not use my data any longer.

Dear Thomas:

Thank you for responding.  Spain was the epicentre of a massive PV fraud in 2008, so nobody should be surprised that banks might be a bit skeptical this year, not just of crystalline. 

S-5! ( http://www.s-5.com ) claim that glass PV installed on metal roofs with their clamps strengthen the roof, and that wind resistance is not affected negatively.  They have some major customers who understand PV, so I do not have reasons to doubt their claims.  We do agree that Unisolar on steel backing will strengthen the roof as well.

Let’s now address the 12MW GM installation in Spain.  As you know, the “project manager” for that installation was DEERS (also known as Clairvoyant).  DEERS has a vast experience with Unisolar installations on flat roofs since 2006 (see http://deers.org/projects/solar/ ), including the two GM roofs in California (worth 1.8MW combined).  If DEERS cannot oversee a Unisolar installation properly, then who can?  Unisolar’s management claim Unisolar is easy to install and an excellent choice for flat roofs.  You are now telling us that the “modules were shorted because they were mounted flat on the roof, without tilt or not enought tilt, so water collected there and shorted most connections.”  How could this happen with such an experienced project manager?  How could this happen with the largest rooftop installation in the world (according to Unisolar)?  How can you exclude such an installation?  By the way, are you also going to exclude the 750KW Long Beach Convention Center installation, another one of DEERS’ gems,  where the Unisolar laminates ignited in February of 2008?

Yes, Unisolar on metal roof is dangerous, as proven by the Science House metal roof installation (see http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5PRC/is_1_113/ai_n25007378/pg_7/?tag=content;col1 ), where the Unisolar laminates “slid on the roof, causing a ground fault” in 2004.  What, you are going to blame that incident on the installer again?  By the way, how is the funny ThyssenKrupp facade doing these days?  Care to share the kWh/kW performance for 2008 and 2009?  Can it even make 650 kWh/kW these days?  Such a waste of PV material!

If “lack of care or experience or failure to stick to manufacturers guidelines” were the cause for the problems, how do you explain such high-profile failures as the East Coast Warehouse in Newark, the Staples installation in Killingly, the Long Beach Convention Center in Los Angeles (even if we exclude the 12MW GM disaster) which were all supervised by experienced project managers/installers (TurtleEnergy, SunEdison, DEERS) familiar with Unisolar’s guidelines?

All the information I have is publicly available (that is, it is not inside information), including public data from remote-monitoring systems.

Hello ECD fan, thanks for the information. I will certainly check it out. I must admit that I did not connect to the PV world before sometime last year, and therefore some news may have gotten past me - I am grateful when I find out stuff that is important, I was told that for GM´s installation they used local companies, maybe that was the crux, because for them it may have been the first time. Maybe I´m wrong with that too. But believe me, Unisolar can´t be that bad, otherwise a whole bunch of installation partners in Europe would not have the product in their portfolio for years and sell their laminates with a proven and working backing - check Hoesch Contecna, Centrosolar, Parabel, Alwitra, Marcegaglia, Rheinzink, Kalzip (Chorus), Soprema, Rubberfuse etc. They all use the laminates it seems for quite some time- they would not do so if they had the problems you describe. I don´t honestly know how much of their business is with and without Unisolar, since they don´t publish that. but I am speaking to some of these people and they never alerted me of any troubles. 
And the people at JM Roofing must have thought something when they picked USO recently over other contenders.
And look at ThyssenKrupp´s Facade with the view of an architect / planner : If not Unisolar on steel, than what ? Glass panels on a steel structur ? You must install a very rigid substructure, and still have the wall sealed behind it. besides talking about a lot of weight, the process is much more labour intensive. And you won´t get away with 0,30 $ extra for that. It will be way more. And to maximize power production was not the goal - as you can see when looking at the object. but still, about 650 kWh/kWp in Germany for a facade is not that bad when compared to a roof that makes about 900 - 950 in the same location. Local irradiation is only around 1000 kwh/m² per year there, not more. So we both have our points.

Dear Thomas:

By your logic, Mr. Madoff did not commit a $20 billion fraud for over the past 30 years.  After all, he was a former Chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange, his firm was one of the largest market makers on Wall Street, and he counted many prominent investors and institutions among his clients - reputable and highly admired funds and banks with billions of dollars under management invested with his firm over the years:  see here http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_madoff_victims_20081215.html .  He swindled all of them.  Because all these people liked a good story and never cared to ACTUALLY verify his profit claims - not once in 30 years!  And none of these institutions and funds (not even the SEC) ever alerted the new gullible investors of any troubles.

So, have you ACTUALLY verified Unisolar’s claims?  How many installations with Unisolar laminates actually do exist?  For example, I admit finding actual third-party installation data for Europe is hard, but it is very easy for California (which accounts for about 60% of the US PV market).  According to the California Solar Initiative (which collects data on ACTUAL rebate reservation requests and installations), Unisolar’s (and SIT’s) share in the PV market there is just 0.4% over the past two years.  Let me repeat, according to the California Solar Initiative dataset, Unisolar+SIT “reservations requests” (that have not been canceled) in California amount to just 1.3MWs since Dec 31st, 2007 (which comes to about 0.35% of the 360MWs of non-canceled reservation requests for all PV modules in the CSI database over the past two years).  So, it seems that Unisolar is “missing in action” in their home market, where they have been selling their a-Si triple-junction product for 12 years or so.  And that’s despite the 42MWs (probably well over 50MWs, if we include SIT) of unsold laminates sitting in their inventory as of September 2009 end.  Why do you think that is?

As far as all those European “partners” you cite, what is their oldest Unisolar installation they can reference and how has that installation performed last year, for example?  Many of those “partners” are building-materials vendors who have very little understanding of PV solar.  And the people at JM Roofing have been known to make huge mistakes -  let’s not forget JM’s history - they went bankrupt in 1982 because it turned out they knew very little about the risks of their main product ingredient, asbestos.

ThyssenKrupp´s facade may look nice, but it is a waste of PV product, because the same PV product, when installed properly, could have generated almost 50% more electricity.  By the way, the facade would have definitely looked nicer if it were made of pure gold (it would have also cooled the building better in the Summer) - so why didn’t the architect / planner use 50 tons of gold alloy ( the facade would have cost just $1 billion)? There are many thin-film and crystalline PV makers (including several European ones) that specialize in glass PV for facades (including transparent and semi-transparent modules), but PV for facades simply makes no economic sense at the current PV prices, and that’s partially the reason why the BIPV “segment,” in general, will not take off in the foreseeable future (despite all the ambitions of the architects trying to bring in higher fees, and despite the misguided “differentiation” efforts of the French and some other European governments).

By the way, are you sure the facade generated 650 kWh/kW last year?  What about over the past 12 months?

Dear ECD Fan, it seems you want to beat me to death with your research. And I really don´t know what Mr. Madoff has got to do in this, but I won´t argue. And I won´t speak for the European Companies - they know what they are doing, and they know it better than you do. So I will say good bye now and keep my opinions to myself, and leave this battelplace (sorry - forum) to you.

Metal Storage Systems Pvt. Ltd. is a Manufacturers and Suppliers of Modern Storage Systems like Racks, Storage Rack, Storage Racks and Industrial Rack in India.
Url:- http://metalstoragesystems.com/

Steve… That was a restrained response. Did you make a new year’s resolution to be nice? Just kidding man. I wrote a response myself but couldn’t post it. Mine went the same as yours except there was more rambling and punctuation and whatnot and so on.

Happy New Year Steve. Good luck in the market. Q4 results are going to be abfab baby. Goofball analysts don’t know nuts. I betcha Germany put in an extra GeedubbaYew over standard projections. Should pad the sheets nicely. Cheers.

LBinFLA, I don’t think First Solar is a sinking ship, just the opposite.  I think they’ll sell everything they can produce for at least the next 5yrs with higher margins than anyone in the business.

In terms of product selection, I’d strongly advise you to look at product performance in heat; ECD found some excellent real life performance stats showing different product performance (CIGS, a-SI, c-Si) in summer desert conditions.  The take home was better heat performance = much better yield in areas with hi heat and long summers.  If you can take full advantage of the longer summer solar hours your yield is MUCH higher.

Look also to emerging technologies that cool pv using a liquid system; this design has the potential advantage of better summer PV performance and lower net costs if the hot water can be utilized. 

I don’t think CIGS is a decade off, more like 12-18 months.  Flexible PV however is not IMO a viable solution despite progress made by Ascent and Global Solar (forget about ENER they’re essentially bankrupt).  Good luck.

I’m not an expert on the subject but I find BP’s results reasonable. I should care more but I don’t.

I’m coming up with $1.04/Watt all in. Sound about right?

LBinFLA, sorry it took so long to answer, I havn´t been following for quite some time now. I have to admit that I do not know a whole lot about Nanosolar yet; I have also been following their development as close as I could, So far all I can say is that it sounds more than interesting to print CIGS nanoparticles instead of deposting them as usual. If this leads in the short term to substantially lower production costs than First Solar´s - who knows ? Mabye FS is getting lower and lower, while NS is trailing behind, trying to catch up. What if then, all the sudden we find out that glass and aluminum are the most expensive part in a solar module - and then what ? Just kidding…. But seriously, I am riding this Unisolar-horse because it´s an excellent BIPV product if installed correctly, and with the right backing material, As long as NS and FS don´t come out with a similar idea, I can´t really use them anywhere. So anyboby out there that makes a proven BIPV flexible solution besides USO and Fuji ? Konarka is not far enough, even though they may have plans, and Lumeta´s Power Ply looks really good, but is too big to install in difficult situations, and it´s cristalline - which I do not want. So what else is there ? Please enlighten me, if you can. Maybe I missed something. Oh, and p.s. : Nanosolar´s website cannot be reached, and have not heard from any installation with their product yet. But that really doesn´t mean a lot, since all installers in Germany are still busy trying to get that backlog cleared that they must have carried over from 2009. More then 3 GW installed in 2009 ! If NS had indeed put 10 or 20 MW on the market, I doubt it would show.  I guess that the first 100 MW would go to their big customers, and they will probably do some test installations before getting the product to their clients - they must try to get real world data.

well, this is a very interesting forum. Now, if to recomend a stock to buy today, what would that be…...ECD is tempting in tha short term, considering they have big fish friends and an surprising buyout or bailout is not out of the question, is it?. On other hand First Solar is much more stable and perhaps still with the potential to increase their EPS in the next couple of years. Trina also sounds good but the price of share is quite high.,,,,,,,,,,so, any ideas?
best regards

sorry, just to make the case clear:
i find ECD stock atractive because of being in the lowest historical price, nearly, and with all those big clients like coca cola, ikea, et al…....and the obvious relations with their other business units i find hard to believe a possible bankrupcy.
I mean i read ovshinsky wishes to the company and they are not bad at all…..bit of satire there…...but really, it sound a lot to a BIG waste!!....and this companies like Chevron,Texaco, Intel…...they all own a part of it.

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