Solar companies experience rough patch, part 3

“At this point investors and smaller firms alike realize that the solar industry is changing,” Schmidtke said. “The larger firms are really accelerating to the point that it’s really hard for some of those start ups to compete. To compete you’ve got to be at the 500 megawatt to a gigawatt production scale.”

Strategic investors, she said, can probably help the solar companies scale-up production.

“Venture capitalists have really had enough,” she said. “They’re finding that to really get those scales [of production],…it’s just too capital intensive. It’s more and more at the point where it’s moving past venture capital. Now you see the strategics coming in to take that role and sometimes at a fair price.”

The differentiation between start-ups and others is illustrated by First Solar’s success, Schmidtke said.

“They were able to get there first. In terms of long-term success it comes down to the operational side of things,” she said. “They’re looking to improve operations and continuing to push up opportunities, whereas some other firms are still focused on the technology.”

Survival for solar companies, Molchanov said, isn’t just a matter of the type of technology being used.

“It’s a function of can they squeeze out more cost,” she said, “or if they can compete on conversion efficiency.”

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Pictured: Traditional Silicon panels continue to lead the market. Photo: Meehan.