The Ledger
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Zindler: Subsidized US solar manufacturing is not guaranteed to beat Southeast Asia
“I don't think it's by any means a slam dunk that the U.S. Will be the lowest cost, you know, will, you know, it will fight to be competitive with Southeast Asian nations to produce this stuff. Even with these subsidies, I don't know that that's for certain tha…”
Zindler: Grid interconnection, not price, will be solar's primary constraint
“It's whether you can get interconnection and get onto the grid. That is the, that is going to be really the limiting factor going forward. So all these other things are really cool, but like, you can add them, you can stack them, you can get a lot of benefit, …”
Zindler: First Solar is very well positioned for IRA manufacturing credits
“First Solar, obviously, as a U.S.-based company, is the one that Sort of licking its lips here, looking at these benefits because they are integrated. You know, they obviously have overseas production too, but they've got a lot, you know, a lot on U.S. Soil, y…”
Zindler: 80% to 85% of US Solar Equipment Came From Four Southeast Asian Countries
“About 80, 85% of All the equipment that was being installed in the U.S. Was coming from those four countries, and given that we don't make much stuff in the U.S., imports are massively important”
Zindler: US will likely need to import skilled solar engineering talent
“Actually, when we talk about imports, like, we're probably going to have to import more, you know you know, very, very well-skilled and engineered folks you know, and capable folks to do a lot of this stuff over here.”
Zindler: The IRA is the most important solar legislation ever passed
“We have the most important piece of legislation ever passed to support the solar industry that is being rolled out and implemented now with a lot of open questions around that.”
Zindler: COVID-era solar supply chain bottlenecks and high prices are easing
“The era of COVID and the tight supply chains and the elevated prices that it created that's easing now. And there's a lot of new capacity on the global market that is coming.”
BNEF: Economic build models overestimate U.S. solar by 10-20 GW annually
“If in a world in which you just dispatch whatever's cheapest, you know, the solar numbers would be, you know, 10 to 20 gigabyte 10 to 20 gigawatts higher per year of stuff that the, that our model sort of spits out. And that's where human beings have to get in…”
Zindler: Most new U.S. solar manufacturing announcements are lower-value module assembly
“Most of it so far has been module assembly, and module assembly is the last step, and it's sort of, quote unquote, lowest value in terms of the you know, the value towards the whole, in terms of the whole process and the labor involved.”
Zindler: Future direct US solar competition will primarily be Southeast Asia
“Actually a lot of the competition is probably going to become more from Southeast Asia than it is from, directly from, I mean, China, of course, will be a huge part of the story because they're the ones who are driving the total scale and the whole pie getting…”
Zindler: Global Solar Installs Could Near 650 GW Annually by 2030
“We're talking about another potentially close to doubling of installation per year by the end of this decade, something like the 600 to 650 gigawatts, something like that range.”
Zindler: U.S. solar module prices sit around 35¢ to 40¢ per watt
“US module prices have been a good deal above the global price, and they've been somewhere up, you know, closer to 35, 40 cents.”
Zindler: US has seen roughly 40 GW of solar module announcements
“I think we've seen about 40 gigawatts of module announcements a much smaller percentage of that that's going to be sells.”
Zindler: US accounts for about 10% of global solar demand
“The U.S. Market, as a scale of the total market, Is about 10%. So about 35 gigawatts of demand, roughly, and by our best estimate, best guesstimate this year, about 350 gigawatts of build, which is pretty remarkable if you think about it.”
Zindler: Chinese Solar Module Prices Have Dropped to Around 20 Cents
“In our latest you know, our latest market outlook, we're saying we're seeing module prices now down to somewhere around 20 cents on a, You know, Chinese module, and that's down from, I think it was 28, 29 cents, sort of a year or two ago”