Planning to install some solar panels? Get them now beofre the price spike. From Bloomberg:
Solar Companies Are Scrambling to Find a Critical Raw Material
Solar manufacturers are being battered by higher costs and smaller margins, after an unexpected shortage of a critical raw material.
Prices of polysilicon, the main component of photovoltaic cells, spiked as much as 35 percent in the past four months after environmental regulators in China shut down several factories.
That’s driving up production costs as panel prices continue to decline, and dragging down earnings for manufacturers in China, the world’s biggest supplier.
And the reason:
The price spike came after an environmental crackdown in China coincided with an annual lull in polysilicon output, according to Jenny Chase, head solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Refiners in China typically cut back polysilicon production during the summer for routine maintenance. Solar manufactures anticipate the seasonal slowdown, but it was exacerbated this year when China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection shut down several plants that make metallurgical silicon, a partially refined polysilicon that other companies further purify for use in solar cells.
The two events led to a polysilicon shortage that drove prices in China from $14 to $19 a kilogram over the past four months, according to Guelph, Ontario-based Canadian Solar, which has most of its manufacturing in China.
Sad that the prices are rising but it is good that the Chinese government is taking its environment seriously. I have a couple of these for my ham radio setup: Renogy 100 Watts 12 Volts Monocrystalline Solar Panel - great for emergency power. Most ham radio stuff runs off 12VDC to begin with so no need for any inverters.
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