Solarfun Power

Any insight?

oil isn't going to play a big role in the demand for solar....as only a small percentage of our energy used to produce electricity comes from oil. Now natural gas (all time high's) and coal will play a larger role. Quite honestly just keep a close eye on what local states and the federal government are doing as that will affect solar/renewable energy stocks more than the commodities. Currently the federal tax credits expire at the end of 2008.....this will have a huge impact on the industry because it helps reduce the cost of solar by 30% of the total costs for commercial installs. Not as big of an impact for residential installs but $2,000 in federal tax credits do help reduce the bottom line when purchasing a system.

 

I work in the industry and quite honestly with the uncertanties of the federal tax credits being renewed or NOT being renewed I would stay away because gov't subsidies is the major reason for this solar boom and without the tax credits it will make things shaky. This is a huge election for renewable energies because all the canidates are talking about the renewable energy industry and creating 1 million jobs and making it more affordable.....how much of that is true or are they just saying what voters want to hear? Bush was the worse thing for this industry because lets be real he works for the oil companies and they want to take away some subsidies away from oil co's and give them for renewable energy programs. I am optimistic that a new bill will be passed by mid 2009 but until they start talking about it....stay away.

 

There are new technologies that we hear about that will be available within the next 2 years that will cut the cost of solar in half....these might be the co's to look at. Once again could be volatile because they have been talking about new technology for years and still the most proven one is still photovoltaics. But with this "boom" more money is being spent by manufactuers to create more efficient and more affordable solar technology. One company I saw a month ago is called sunergy (not sure if they are publicly traded) or something like that, I will get the correct name if not, but they have a new technology that uses mirrors with a similar solar cell found on PV panels and it captures more of the suns energy. manufactuers have tried this in the past but using the mirrors made the heat so intense on the solar cells that they would fry. Well sunergy or whatever they are called uses the same concpt but created some type of cooloing system to keep the cells from frying.

 

i hope this was helpful.....

Natural Gas is up over 70% from this time last year. The weak dollar has much to do with that and supplies are down with higher demand world wide. June is the beginning of hurrican season which could damper production of NG and we should see a continued hike in the price......