Unisolar: Eligible for incentives in CA on July 1st?
The truth about ECD?
Beginning July 1, 2009, only modules which are on the SB1 Guidelines compliant module list [cached]will be eligible for incentives in California. Every reputable solarcompany is already on that list. But as of the latest update (June 1st,2009), Unisolar is not.
Mr. Trinske, who hails from a fraud and is currently ECD’s VP of IR and Corporate Communications, was quoted last week: "Withthe change in programs in the U.S., we’re expecting the U.S. to be ourbiggest growth market for maybe the next five years," with help fromthe federal government’s $787 billion economic stimulus package."
Thatwould be quite a feat, unless Unisolar’s name appears on the SB1 listwithin 23 days (or unless Unisolar is planning to somehow inundate theFederal and State governments with substandard modules), given that California accounted for 60% of new US installations last year.But even if Unisolar’s name appears there, that may still be a mootpoint. According to the latest CSI data, Unisolar (and their "partner"SIT) had just 310 KW worth of non-cancelled installation reservationsover the past 17 months in California (details of the calculations canbe found here) – and, yes, that comes to about 0.1% (1/10th of a percent) market share in the most important US PV market.
Still,Unisolar is known to report magic numbers when it comes to their NorthAmerican shipments. According to the earnings call presentations,Unisolar has shipped about 19MWsto North America in calendar 2008. The precise location in NorthAmerica of at least 10-15MWs of those remains a mystery (but maybe 12MWs ended up in Spain, and the rest are sitting in AGT’s warehouse).
