Just a few days into the new year and we are already getting a small taste of what the year might be like for solar stocks.
First Solar
With Chinese manufacturers like Trina Solar
The Chinese are known for bringing in experts to teach them industry-leading techniques and then taking over themselves when they've learned enough. Think Lenovo, when you think a U.S. company may be taking hold in China.
The next frontier: Canada
With everyone worried that solar demand will die down this year, we may need to focus our attention on an unlikely source of demand from Canada. Ontario is becoming a hotbed for solar investment, opening the 80-MW Sarnia Solar Project last year and becoming a renewable energy mecca.
Yesterday, First Solar found a buyer for 50 MW of projects in Ontario that will start construction this summer. Plutonic Power Corp. and GE
Last year, SunPower
These sales don't really tell us if solar is going to fall off a cliff in 2011, but they at least get us off on the right foot. Solar companies will have to prove they can take a few more steps before Wall Street buys into the solar story this year.
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