BP Exits the Solar Industry (via Planet Gore)
Bloomberg:
BP Plc, Europe’s second-largest oil company, will shut its solar power unit and quit the business entirely after 40 years because it’s become unprofitable.
The company will wind down the unit, BP Solar, over several months, Mike Petrucci, the unit’s chief executive officer, told staff in an internal letter last week. About 100 employees will be affected.
BP Solar is withdrawing from an industry that’s facing oversupply and price pressures after Asian competitors increased production. Panel prices plunged 48 percent this year, helping tip three U.S. makers including Solyndra LLC into bankruptcy, and Solon SE (SOO1), Germany’s first listed solar company, filed for insolvency last week.
“The continuing global economic challenges have significantly impacted the solar industry, making it difficult to sustain long-term returns for the company,” Petrucci said in the letter.
The rest here.
harvey says:
December 21, 2011 at 11:00 am
“Dear Tom
“The bottom line is that it’s the bottom line that counts.
Being ‘green’ costs too much green.”
Totally wrong. Supply and Demand.
yours Harvey”
Harvey, the demand in Germany, the biggest market, is artificially created by forcing every electricity ratepayer to pay 3.5 Eurocents more for a kWh; and this money pays for an artificially inflated tariff paid to every solar energy / wind energy producer.
Without this cross-subsidy, there would be no demand.
Politicians call these systems they create “free market solutions”; but that’s as Free as the Democratic People’s Republic Of North Korea is democratic.
As long solar cells don´t really work during night i see no future for them and don´t let us start talking about solar radiation density during winter…..
And by coincidence, today the German solar-thermal and PV company Solar Millenium filed for bankruptcy as well. They wanted to build some project in California.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/12/21/rip-bp-shuts-down-solar-business-also-in-germany-solar-industry-faces-collapse/#comment-65704
Look for BP to be excoriated by the Greenies now. Look for Gore to threaten to sit on the Board of Directors,including the CEO. I mean that literally!
Dear DirkH
Maybe the USA should stop subsidying all the OIL companies 🙂
yours
Harvey
China is subsidizing their solar manufacturers and dumping the products on foreign markets below cost. The subsidies and Solyndra-style loans mean public risk for private profit for the Chinese people. Together with the dumping, this means every unit sold costs the Chinese citizens money.
We can’t let this dump gap continue. If the Chinese are losing $25 billion a year, then we need to lose $50 billion a year. We cannot allow this imbalance. I demand tariffs, mandates, price supports and more insider loans. We can’t allow to China to take the lead in pissing more money down the green black hole than we do.
~More Soylent Green!
Well, as President Obama said in 2008, Solar power is the future, within the next five years millions of new green sustainable jobs will have been created as the USA moves away from old polluting fossil fuels to clean and green and efficient solar and wind power”. Thats the trouble with supposedly super smart people, they usually turn out to have less about them than a stunned mullet.
Well, a prophet he aint and this is supposed to be the most learned and deep thinking President ever? He not only got it wrong, he got it about as wrong as is humanly possible to get it, and not since the Captain of the Titanic gave the order for full speed ahead in an area stuufed with bergs has someone so supposedly smart got it so very wrong.
Merry Xmas to all.
Large companies like BP have lots of ways of knowing what is going on in Washington DC before the rest of us.
My guess is that they know the end of subsidies is coming and they want out.
pat says:
December 21, 2011 at 10:31 am
“As a former owner of a solar company, I understand this completely. only one solar application makes sense: heating water. The idea that solar panels can do anything other than serve as a boutique power source is simply boneheaded.”
======================================
pat, I agree with your assessment of “boutique” power sources. My house was built in 1977 (the Carter era) when electricity was supposed to remain incredibly cheap. Alas, it is an all-electric home with ceiling electric radiant heat. It also had a roof mounted solar assist water heating system. This system thermostatically controlled the flow of propylene glycol through the roof mounted solar collectors to a heat exchange unit mounted next to the electric water heater. The other half of the system ran potable water through the heat exchanger to the water heater. I spent a fortune on plumbers keeping this damn system working. Finally I learned how to service it myself but even then stuff was always falling apart and needing replacement. You need pumps and hoses to recharge the system, roof mounted blow-out check valves were always in need of replacement, propylene glycol is ridiculously expensive, etc.
In theory it’s a great idea. When it worked I actually had almost “free” hot water in the summer months. But that “free” hot water cost me dearly in terms of money and my time. So when the 30+ year old water heater started leaking it was a no-brainer. A replacement water heater with all the input and output connections would have cost me over $1,500. A simple 50 gal modern electric water heater only set me back $160. Of course the plumber screwed me but I haven’t noticed any significant change in my outrageous electric bill since the change. Maybe they make these systems smarter than they did 34 years ago, but the more complicated the system the more likely it will require costly service. I’ve played around with PV systems, too. Battery maintenance and replacement pretty much negates the benefit there. I’ve been impressed with passive solar designs for home heating and cooling.
Dear rwct
“Look for BP to be excoriated by the Greenies now. Look for Gore to threaten to sit on the Board of Directors,including the CEO. I mean that literally!”
Why thank you rwct, I’m impressed by your prognostications. LOOK A DEER!!
yours
Harvey
That’s what happens when EU countries reduce the subsidies for “green” technology and alternative energy, reduced profit follows.
So it has nothing to do with supply and demand, unless you count the supply of subsidies as supply in supply and demand. :p
Out of 79,700 BP employees only 100 would be affected (0.125%). BP is closing down rounding error. It’s not even enough to consider ‘green-washing.’
Harvey says:
“Maybe the USA should stop subsidying all the OIL companies”
Oil companies pay more taxes than the average company so they aren’t subsidized, like Solyndra, etc. But thanx anyway, and keep playing. We enjoy the added site traffic.
Yeah.
Oh wait, we don’t. The oil companies don’t get any subsidies from the federal government and don’t qualify for any special tax breaks.
And they pay billions and billions in taxes.
And you’re free to buy their products or not.
~More Soylent Green!
The death of BP Solar is not cheering news.
They had a reputation for producing the best panels. 80% output guaranteed for around 20 years and proof against golf ball sized hailstones at terminal velocity. These panels had many legitimate uses in remote power applications. The illegitimate use of PV in heavily subsidised home instillations and large scale grid destabilising commercial installations have caused the market to be flooded with cheap crap. When mass producing de-laminating trash in china, you don’t have to pay so much to handle the 3 tonnes of carbon tetrachloride involved in producing each tonne of polycrystalline silicon.
Fine post. Your sarcastic references to no-clue-Chu are particularly apropos. Almost as bad as highwayman-Holder running the DOJ.
Maybe they will also ditch that stupid fake sunflower logo
and lose the phony “green” “beyond petroleum” slogan
YOU’RE A PETROLEUM COMPANY, idiots
harvey says:
December 21, 2011 at 12:25 pm
“Dear DirkH
Maybe the USA should stop subsidying all the OIL companies 🙂
yours
Harvey”
Fossil fuel companies pay taxes to other governments. They can deduce these payments from the taxes they would have to pay in the US. The green groups count this as subsidies, but it’s a normal process against double taxation that all internationally active companies use.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/03/the-dark-future-of-solar-electricity/#comment-817470
There are other boutique uses as well, traffic signs too far to serve power to, telemetry systems, etc. If you see a solar panel at the side of the road someplace, it’s probably not driven by green fantasies, it’s driven by economics.
harvey said @ur momisugly December 21, 2011 at 12:25 pm
“Maybe the USA should stop subsidying all the OIL companies :)”
Care to put a figure on those subsidies? Saudi Aramco, National Iranian, Petróleos de Venezuela, Gazprom, Rosneft, China National Petroleum, Petronas, Petrobras? I’d be surprised if the USA subsidises any of these “OIL” companies who just happen to control over 75% of world oil production.
DirkH says:
December 21, 2011 at 12:14 pm
“And by coincidence, today the German solar-thermal and PV company Solar Millenium filed for bankruptcy as well. They wanted to build some project in California.”
Looks like Solar Millenium got 2 bn federal US loan for that project – think Solyndra times four. (Just heard it on Dana Loesch’s show)
Drill baby drill!
Big companies should never forget what its core business is….Remember you must produce enough oil to burn all those, “convenient” for politicians only, built Wind Towers in the UK which are bankrupting the UK and killing old people.
John-X said @ur momisugly December 21, 2011 at 1:28 pm
“Maybe they will also ditch that stupid fake sunflower logo and lose the phony “green” “beyond petroleum” slogan YOU’RE A PETROLEUM COMPANY, idiots”
According to the Wiki-bloody-pedia:
“BP p.l.c.[3][4] (LSE: BP, NYSE: BP) is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas “supermajors”.[5][6] It is vertically-integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading. It also has major renewable energy activities, including in biofuels, hydrogen, solar and wind power.”
Combined, ExxonMobil, BP & Shell account for only 10% of world oil production and 3% of oil reserves. Sounds like the oil business might only play a minor role in BP’s revenues.
On a somewhat related note, since the likely decline of the type of subsidies discussed are probably a good part of the reason for BP’s withdrawal from the solar market
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16192
Chevy Volt Costing Taxpayers Up to $250K Per Vehicle
Analyst: ‘This might be the most government-supported car since the Trabant’
No, what that means is that the big players in the oil business are the state oil companies in the Middle East and Latin America.