It seems to be a trend now, last October it was Siemens who gave up on solar, now it is British Petroleum, who has been in the solar business nearly 40 years, and has made the last closure announcements, finalizing what they announced in 2011.
In the news today:
(Reuters) – British oil major BP shut down the remnants of its solar unit on Wednesday, drawing a line under the business on which most of its Beyond Petroleum tagline of the early 2000s was premised.
The unit, which BP has been scaling back since 2008, is the latest sun energy business to fall victim to rampant competition from China, falling prices, overcapacity and lower government subsidies on which the industry still depends.
Solar Millennium on Wednesday became the second German solar company to file for insolvency in December, following module maker Solon.
U.S. company Solyndra LLC folded earlier in 2011 while Swiss bank Sarasin said in a recent study that Conergy and Q-Cells were among the German solar companies most exposed to the sector’s crisis.
“The continuing global economic challenges have significantly impacted the solar industry, making it difficult to sustain long term returns for the company, despite our best efforts,” BP said in an internal letter to staff.
The company confirmed on Wednesday that it plans to exit its large-scale projects at Long Haven in the U.S. and Moree in Australia.
BP announced plans in July to abandon its household and industrial rooftop solar activities to concentrate on the larger projects but said on December15 that even those were no longer viable.
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Meh. I don’t think BP has any real interest in solar. It was just greenturfing for PR reasons. In fact, I’d prefer if they get out of the technology so they don’t get any important patents they can sit on and prevent other companies from using the technology for if they so choose.
Don Bennett says:
March 7, 2013 at 8:48 pm
Nice one! Yeah – it still makes me puke too.
/@ur momisugly Don Bennett: One of the more “printable/spoken” names for BP is Beyond Pathetic.
Korean solar companies are not doing well either, judging by this article titled “Bets on solar cells and batteries don’t pan out”.
http://koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2966948&cloc=joongangdaily|home|newslist1
@ur momisugly jim2 – I vote for Professor Dino Saur, who gave his all fighting climate change; unfortunately the cold got him in the end 🙂
SAMURAI says:
March 7, 2013 at 9:02 pm
“…The business model for large-scale solar and wind technology is a massive failure. There is perhaps, a niche market for wind/solar providing an intermitent and expensive back-up power system for individuals but that’s about it. The cost/kWh makes solar/wind uncompetive and wasteful on a large scale basis.
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Agreed.
Solar has its place for those who are off grid. Where I live in Spain, there are many villas in remote mountain areas. The cost of connecting to the grid is very high. For such properties, a solar array (and solar thermal) makes sense on an economic basis. It would not work in all countries due to high latitudes and cloudiness, but for Spain it works OK since Spain is a sunny country.
Personally, I can’t see wind working even on a small scale, well apart from driving a water pump on farmsteads. Redundant 18th century technology.
Mario Lento says:
March 7, 2013 at 9:20 pm
“…CA is already ahead of this notion. We have mandates to purchase energy from renewable sources, if I recall to the tune of 33% by 2020. We are being FORCED to by this expensive energy. That’s how stupid the CA pubic is where I live. It’s unbelievable.”
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Stupid may be, or is it all the grass they are smoking?
In the 80′s around about the time the politicized man-made climate activists made the transition from their man made cooling scare to the man made global warming scare, there was a huge discovery and an advancement in field of superconductivity and it was claimed to revolutionize the worlds energy, it was also widely claimed that superconductivity was a major step forward in energy efficiency and the applied technology would supply energy to consumers at a fraction of the cost, almost immediately there was outrage from the usual sources, activists of all persuasions crawled out from under their moss covered rocks to proclaim that cheap efficient energy was a bad thing. Politicians, professors and some of the most influential people at the time spoke out against it, it was casually said; to give people cheap efficient energy would be a dangerous thing, demonizing energy was the flavor of the month for the misanthropist.
Moving forward 30 years or so, we now have expensive and inefficient electronic gadgetry plugged into our energy grids across the planet, we now have energy policies dictated to by environment policy which are run by advocacy groups promoting climate disaster and imminent Anthropogenic doom at ever turn, large tax break charities for the super rich pushing carbon trading markets and long-ago gone rogue environmental activists stifling industrial potential and technological innovation. We now have skyrocketing energy prices, for every kilowatt produced by a failing so-called “green energy” initiative, advocates of the “green” policies and laws receive and will continue to receive a financial reward for their failure. The the fattened calf that is the “green energy” fiasco, labeled as “sustainable” is in fact unsustainable and it’s time to take daisy to the market. We are now back to where we were 30 or so years ago, it’s been one giant 30 year balls-up after another in advocacy driven energy policy in my opinion it may well have be intentional.
The problem BP faces, is that the systems do not work as advertised.
A colleague installed water and photovotaic panels, and made the big mistake of decommissioning his gas heater. His wife divorced him three years later, citing her husband’s inability to provide her with hot water and heating.
Evolution in action (no more kids) – I think Darwin would be smiling in his grave.
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BP is NOT “British Petroleum”. It used to be but it is now an international company with a new name.
Mario Lento says:
March 7, 2013 at 9:20 pm
“…We have mandates to purchase energy from renewable sources, if I recall to the tune of 33% by 2020. We are being FORCED to by this expensive energy.”
Yeah I think that ship has now sailed, I think we all have to come grips with the new reality…
“The perception that fossil fuels are cheap and renewables are expensive is now out of date”, said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of BNEF.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/rising-risk-prices-out-new-coalfired-plants-report-20130207-2e0s4.html
It’s becoming that fossil fuels are now the more expensive energy, sure wind and solar is intermittent and will always need some kind of fossil fuel base load, but renewables are now cheaper
“Night Falls On China’s Solar Industry”
http://www.thegwpf.org/night-falls-chinas-solar-industry/
“Suntech, the world’s highest-selling producer of solar panels, has just fired its founder and chairman as it scrambles to pay a $541 million bill”
So I guess BP posters all over Brussels trying to get th EU to invest in their solar research will be going too, leaving only Shell to promote its green technology.
@Mario Lento
Sorry, but you are talking utter rubbish. Read this from the pro-green, pro-EU BBC and ask yourself if renewables really are cheaper as you claim:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21575288
Ryan says:
March 8, 2013 at 2:24 am
@Mario Lento
Sorry, but you are talking utter rubbish. Read this from the pro-green, pro-EU BBC and ask yourself if renewables really are cheaper as you claim:-: You are not quoting me. I called renewables more expensive, as they are more expensive.
Ryan, you are confused. I never said they were cheaper; rather quite the opposite.
MorningGuy says:
March 8, 2013 at 1:02 am
You’d be wrong. Fossil fuels are much cheaper than subsidized energy, regardless of what bunk articles are forced into your head. If you can’t do the math, I cannot help you. And given all of this, fossil fuels are artificially being made more costly due to carbon taxes and CO2 regulations.
Fun Photo of BP tanker filling ip Greenpeace’s boat the ‘Rainbow Warrior”
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2865/greenpeace_caught_with_pants_down
Having researched solar panels for several years now,, I have come to the conclusion that
practical solar energy is an illusion. Virtually everything that comes out of the mouths of solar enthusiasts represents illusion. One can start with the STC ratings of panel output – they overstate panel output by roughly 12 to 15%. Then there are the deterioration losses, sometimes
1% per year, plus inversion penalties of 4%. For rooftop systems there is a cost virtually everyone will have to pay but I’ve never seen mentioned, and its a whopper : virtually every
house with a rooftop array will have to replace the roof long before the panels go bad. Installation costs are the largest cost factor when installing a rooftop system. – accounting usually for 60% of the $35-$40,000 for a 6KW system (providing actual power of 4.5KW over its lifespan), or
less than half what’s needed. So if you factor in installation, de-installation and then re-installation costs of that panel system, the economics go from good grief to holy shit.
For solar farms, based on California’s figures, a typical current nuclear reactor rated at 1500 MW
can produce as much power as 80,000 acres of solar panels!!! That’s 125 square miles.And
solar panels have been estimated by more than 20 studies worldwide to be responsible for at least twice the carbon emissions as nuclear power, often three times more. Today nuclear power is the lowest cost power there is – cheaper than coal since 1999. AGW buffoons who like solar and dislike nuclear are not only economic morons, the’y’re environmentally brainless as well.
I remember BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” ads. Seemed like they were simply just embarrassed to be in the petroleum industry and used actors who couldn’t pronounce “oil.” I figured if they didn’t want to be in the petroleum business, I’d do my best to help them out and buy my products from the competition.
In November, the State Corporation Commission approved a Dominion Virginia Power rate increase totaling $80 million to pay for their solar pilot project. They were asking for $110 million. Heaven help us if they build the real plant.
Catcracking says:
March 7, 2013 at 8:36 pm
Interesting. In all the claims of pending crises due to “sequestering” $44 Billion ($1.0E12) [1.16% of the 2012 US federal budget], I have not heard that seas will rise and polar bears will go extinct because we can no longer fund climate research. Maybe I’ve just missed it. You’d think the AgitProp folks would have at least tossed in warnings about more “superstorm” Sandys, but I haven’t heard a peep.
Seems like they’re missing an obvious opportunity.
A week ago came the unexpected report of local warming from wind farms. Got me to thinking. Solar farms are large and most of the square footage is occupied by solar panels, which, bt design, are built to absorb solar radiation, converting roughly 15% into electricity, the
rest into heat. Solar panels get very warm (which decreases their efficiency). So would anyone out there care to check the effect of one of California’s large (15 square mile) solar farms on
temp stations close to the facility, for the daytime and then for heatsink effects at night ?
I think the effect might be surprising. It also occurred to me that solar buffs who view the Sun as a kindly natural source of power might reconsider. If the Sun were a retail product it would be banned :by the FDA and EPA both : This product is a known carcinogen :can cause skin cancer and even blindness if stared out for a period of time
Well – HERE’S some recent research that all western governments will want to ignore…
David Keith, professor of applied physics at Harvard (no less), has published a paper in ‘Environmental Research Letters’ which really made me sit up and take notice..
Are you ready for this..?
WIND FARMS CAN CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE
Yep – you read that right. The nitty gritty is all down to wind ‘shadow’ – in other words the reduction in wind after a turbine has taken the energy from the wind – which can also have a detrimental effect on the efficiency (I use the term loosely) of those turbines downwind..
Now the interesting bit. On large installations (and some are planned to be gigantic) the energy taken from the wind can be sufficient to REDUCE the amount of wind in that region – making the turbines less and less efficient over time..
This phenomenon is summarised at the end of an article in the UK’s ‘Professional Engineering’ magazine by the co-author, Amanda Adams of the University of North Carolina, as follows:
‘One of the inherent challenges of wind energy is that, as soon as you develop wind farms and harvest the resource, you change the resource, making it difficult to assess what’s really available.’
You see..? There’s no such thing as a free lunch..!
Ryan says:
March 8, 2013 at 2:24 am
Sorry, but you are talking utter rubbish. Read this from the pro-green, pro-EU BBC and ask yourself if renewables really are cheaper as you claim:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21575288
sure the Germans have paid dearly for solar and wind, but HAVE is the operative word, and I’m not talking about the old price for renewables, I’m talking about the new price…
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9841
see figure 1 – price of system installed in Germany, note it’s gone from 5Euro/kW to 1.75Euro/kW and it’s going down like a brick balloon… what do you think that price is going to be in 2020 ???
For the record, BP is not British Petroleum. It is…just BP.
@MorningGuy
If you’re taking orders, I’d like a 5kW unit on my south-facing roof. Where do I send the cheque for 8.75 Euros? 🙂