Worldwide, testing labs, developers, financiers and insurers … say the $77 billion solar industry is facing a quality crisis just as solar panels are on the verge of widespread adoption.
No one is sure how pervasive the problem is. There are no industrywide figures about defective solar panels. And when defects are discovered, confidentiality agreements often keep the manufacturer’s identity secret, making accountability in the industry all the more difficult.
But at stake are billions of dollars that have financed solar installations, from desert power plants to suburban rooftops, on the premise that solar panels will more than pay for themselves over a quarter century.
Most of the concerns over quality center on China, home to the majority of the world’s solar panel manufacturing capacity.
After incurring billions of dollars in debt to accelerate production that has sent solar panel prices plunging since 2009, Chinese solar companies are under extreme pressure to cut costs.
Chinese banks in March, for instance, forced Suntech into bankruptcy. Until 2012, the company had been the world’s biggest solar manufacturer.
Executives at companies that inspect Chinese factories on behalf of developers and financiers said that over the last 18 months they have found that even the most reputable companies are substituting cheaper, untested materials. Other brand-name manufacturers, they said, have shut down production lines and subcontracted the assembly of modules to smaller makers.
A three-hundred foot section of a ramp leading to a 9.6-mile bridge over the Songhua River collapsed today, nine months after the bridge opened, the New York Times reports. It’s the sixth major bridge to collapse this year. Last year, a crash involving a brand-new high speed rail line cost the lives of 40 people. The heavily subsidized solar panel industry is meeting resistance both European and U.S. markets, thanks to the complaints of domestic heavily subsidized solar panel manufacturers. Oh, and the wife of highly placed government official was convicted of murder in a one-day trial.
This is the nation that Thomas Friedman and President Obama wish we were more like, and which Niall Ferguson says is taking over the world. But, apparently, not today.
