Chinese solar producer Suntech declares bankruptcy

Re:Chinese solar producer Suntech declares bankruptcy by JumpCrisscross on Thursday March 21, 2013 @02:21AM (#5413296)

I suspect your numbers may be off. A $15 000 investment that produced $150 in nominal cash flows a month for 20 years (low end) would produce an internal rate of return of 9.1%.

Yet solar panels do not produce nominal cash flows, they make energy - a real good. Energy inflation for urban consumers in the U.S. has averaged, month-to-month annualised, 6.7% over the past 10 years. This raises your IRR to 16.3%. The closest maturity-matched non-callable bond is TXU's 2034 6.55 yielding 15.2% to maturity and rated CC by Fitch.

Even allowing you to capture only 1/2 of the energy inflation, your return is 12.7%. A whole point south of Venezuela. Then again, a warranty from a solar company may be worth as much as a dollar lent to Caracas...

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Re:Chinese solar producer Suntech declares bankruptcy by yessql on Thursday March 21, 2013 @10:42AM (#5415325)

PV is coming down in cost precipitously. Energy companies are buying huge PV farms. Their cost of energy will drop.

Utilities are regulated to limit their rates to guarantee minimum profitability, so their price must be correlated to their cost.

Ergo, electricity costs will drop. Your rooftop PV system is never going to be much cheaper, if ever cheaper at all, than the electricity that the utility will provide from utility scale PV that has been installed much more cheaply, and much more optimized than the arbitrary orientation of your roof.

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