German Company Buys Shell's Solar Division - Reuters

[hatrack]

FRANKFURT- Germany's SolarWorld has bought Shell Group's loss-making silicon solar operations for an undisclosed sum, making it the biggest player in the US solar energy market, it said on Thursday.

Shares of SolarWorld, which have risen about 430 percent over the past 12 months, rose to an all-time high of 230.90 euros, before closing up 17.4 percent at 218.85 euros. Frank Asbeck, chief executive of solar energy company SolarWorld, told Reuters it expects 2006 revenues to rise by about 40 percent after it buys Shell's silicon-based solar operations, more than doubling its production capacities to 140 megawatts from 80.

Asbeck said the company had reached its 2005 sales and earnings targets. It has forecast 2005 sales to rise by more than 50 percent to "well over" 300 million euros ($362 million) and net profit to come in at more than 40 million euros.

SolarWorld said it would take over US Shell locations in Vancouver, Washington and Camarillo, California that manufacture solar silicon crystals, wafers, cells and modules.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34859/story.htm

[phantom power]

1. 140 is more than double 80? That's some esoteric math.

[OneBlueSky]

2. guess Shell figures that their future is in oil . . . strange . . . n/t

.

[phantom power]

3. Somebody here once referenced the parable of the RR companies.

The rail road companies fell on hard times, because they continued to think of themselves as "rail road" companies, and not "transportation" companies. Likewise, many of the oil companies are clearly digging themselves in, as "oil companies," and not "energy companies." I note with interest that BP is apparently taking the opposite strategy. I don't think it takes a crystal ball to predict that BP is a lot more likely to survive than Exxon or Shell.

[skids]

4. No they are leapfrogging to producing CIS cells.

Courbevoie, France Saint-Gobain Vitrage, Saint-Gobain's Flat Glass Sector and Shell have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to produce next-generation solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. This panel does not incorporate silicon wafers. Shell has developed a new generation of photovoltaic panel based on Copper Indium Selenide (CIS) thin-film deposited on glass. It has been successfully tested and offers record efficiency, especially under low illumination conditions. Saint-Gobain Vitrage brings its expertise in thin-film layer deposits and glass transformation, developed after several years operating in the automotive and building markets.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=42884

[megatherium]

5. The article says Shell developed the CIS panels.

Was it the unit of Shell now being sold to the Germans?

[skids]

7. The other article seems to make a point in saying...

Shell has sold their "silicon based solar" business. I would take this as a no. Could be, but it hints at no.

[megatherium]

8. Thanks!

I hope the new technology is substantially cheaper and better -- because unfortunately solar PV as it stands now is too expensive to replace a significant amount of fossil fuels.

[skids]

9. UPDATE: Verified, yes, this is a move to CIS tech by shell

So in divesting its entire crystalline operation -- approximately 80 MW of yearly production capacity potential -- the company held on to its small, 3 MW production line in California for thin-film CIS solar. And on the same day as this announcement from Shell, the company struck a deal to explore the eventual construction of a 20 MW CIS module production facility with the France-based glass specialists St. Gobain.

...

"I think SolarWorld is in a far more powerful position to exploit crystalline solar than Shell was," Maycock said. "I find it encouraging that SolarWorld, who thoroughly understands solar crystalline, has access to this key technology. It has recognized that Shell has decided on CIS instead."

...

Maycock said Shell, like many other companies worldwide, has been exporting its solar products to Germany. For example, he said Shell only allocated roughly 20 MW of solar for the U.S. market in 2005 with close to 40 MW going abroad to Germany. Since SolarWorld is already producing in Germany, but now has U.S. ambitions, he said buying up factories in the U.S. made the most sense. Through this acquisition, SolarWorld will gain large commercial manufacturing facilities in Vancouver, Washington and Camarillo, California. Both facilities manufacture solar silicon crystals, wafers, cells and modules.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=43063

[Massacure]

6. Isn't Selenide toxic?

So glad how they want to take two steps forward and one step back. >_<

[skids]

10. Are you planning to eat your solar panels? n/t

[phantom power]

11. Eventually, they wear out. That poses the question...

where do they end up? In land-fills? If so, does selenium leach into the ground water?

[skids]

12. Heh.

I'd be more worried about the selenium that's already in the ground leaching into the ground water. Most selenium pollution problems involve farm runoff where the selenium is liberated from just plain old dirt by irrigation.

Besides, I've never seen a solar panel go to a landfill, have you?

[phantom power]

13. Actually, I'm not especially worried about either, but...

it seems like the sort of thing that might be noteworth on larger scales, when concentrated into PV cells. I don't know what the doping concentration is, though.

I assume that some solar panels have made it to landfills. If nothing else, little things like solar calculators, and other small applications. The majority of the larger installations are less than 30 years old, I imagine, so there hasn't been a large-scale waste stream of PV arrays. Yet.

[NNadir]

14. There would have to be lots of solar panels for that to happen.

There really aren't that many.

People keep promising a million on a million roofs in a million places, but that never actually happens. The actual environmental impact of solar PV power is seems trivial because the capacity is trivial.

One may not be so flippant about issues of waste should the technology become widely used, which as of today, is still a long way off.

It is very clear that exhaustive examination of issues in solar manufacturing have not concluded that the potential environmental impact of this technology is zero:

http://www.chem.uu.nl/nws/www/publica/e2000-15.pdf

Looking at table 4-2 we see that the environemntal cost of one solar home system includes 583 kg of CO₂ per megawatt-hour. This is smaller than the case for coal, but again, it is not zero.

People don't, by the way, drink diesel fuel either, but that doesn't mean that diesel fuel is absolutely safe.