Solar industry emerges from darkness
Installations at power plants and on roofs are expected to swell 40 per cent in 2013 amid speedy recovery from a two-year slump
Solar industry manufacturers are rebounding from a two-year slump faster than technology companies recovered from the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.
The benchmark BI Global Large Solar Energy Index of 15 manufacturers, which slumped 87 per cent from a February 2011 peak to November 2012, has regained 55 per cent of its value in the past year. The Nasdaq Composite Index reached its post-bubble low in October 2002 and regained 37 per cent of its March 2000 peak value in the following year, data showed.
Suppliers including California's SunPower, which has gained more than fivefold this year, and China's Yingli Green Energy are driving the rally as panel prices stabilise. Installations at power plants and on roofs will swell 40 per cent this year from a 6.1 per cent pace last year.
"The worst is probably behind us," said Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "We've just gone through a big trough in solar supply."
This is an industry that’s got out of its childhood, emerged from adolescence and is poised to enter adulthood
Investors poured US$205 billion into clean-energy projects in the past year, soaking up some of the global oversupply of panels. The recovery would continue in 2014 with prices remaining stable, Chase said. Manufacturers are "a lot less depressed".
Analysts have become more optimistic about solar shares in recent months. The average rating for SunPower, the biggest US supplier of polysilicon-based solar panels, was 3.5, up from 2.4 in December and the highest in more than two years, data showed.
