Published by ElectroIQ
The year 2011 did not bid so well for the solar industry. While manufacturing costs improved, prices for PV technology crashed, driving industry pioneers and startups out of business. Dumping charges in the US divided industry participants into separate and sometimes vitriolic camps. Multi-megawatt installations formerly meant to be CSP switched to flat-plate PV. Instead of top-10 manufacturer lists, pundits prepared lists of winners and losers. One big oil company got into solar (Total), while another big oil company bowed out (BP). With markets teetering on the edge of collapse in Europe, manufacturers rediscovered remote and unsubsidized markets, announcing that these historic and (*cough*) stable markets were the future for the solar industry. At the end of 2011, the industry lost one of its own: Brian Robertson, CEO of CPV company Amonix.
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