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Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

nytimes.com

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Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#91

Post by rootusrootus »

trymas wrote: post #86
Workaccount2 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the many electronics we build at my job, one of them is a shoe box sized 5kW power supply that we sell to the railroads. Testing 10 of these units in one afternoon, by one tech in a closet sized room, uses more energy than my house uses in a month (yes, it can get very hot in that room, hah) And this is a very tiny project that's simply just easy recurring revenue. The bigger units that are being built and tested…

That puts a great perspective, though please correct if I am wrong - if you are testing power supplies - you need to dump that power somewhere? Can’t you dump it back to power grid (easy to say, probably not so easy to do)? There will be losses, but better than nothing.

Or just don't draw it from the grid to begin with. Test enough really big power supplies, and the cost of a big set of batteries & inverters starts to look like a good investment vs paying the electric utility for it.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#92

Post by majewsky »

nradov wrote: post #85
iammjm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is the conservatives blocking the investments because they believe any debt is super bad

Is there some reason that solar power industry investments would have to be financed using debt rather than equity?

As a German observing the political debate in Germany, it appears to me that either the relevant politicians are literally unaware of the equity option, or they are ideologically opposed to it for some reason. The same applies to political journalists, so we don't get a clear answer that way either.

To go into opinion, I'm heavily leaning towards the "ideology" explanation. The current libertarian finance minister is rather publicly operating on a platform of "the government handling money = bad".

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#93

Post by hannob »

roenxi wrote: post #5

Germany's energy production is below 1970s levels and their per capita figures are in a grim state [0]. As with much of Europe, it makes for worrying reading. It would be extremely impressive if they can remain a manufacturing leader through this. If there is less energy, someone will have to use less energy. As far as I can tell that means either compromising living standards or giving up some heavy manufacturing. I…

> If there is less energy, someone will have to use less energy. As far as I can tell that means either compromising living standards or giving up some heavy manufacturing.

That's total nonsense, I guess you never heard the word "energy efficiency".

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#94

Post by AlchemistCamp »

usrusr wrote: post #71
guappa wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This usually means closing shop and opening in a company where energy is cheaper and the government lets you pollute as much as you want.

That happens, but it's far from the whole picture. When energy is cheap you grow a lot of low hanging fruit savings not taken that suddenly become worthwhile when prices rise. Market economy is ruthless about optimisation, and when a change from a wasteful process to a less wasteful process is even the tiniest bit more expensive to perform than just paying for the extra energy, then market economy dictates that it's…

> "at one point in the future energy price will rise anyways"

That's a silly assumption, unless you're expecting technological progress to grind to a halt.

Energy prices are dramatically cheaper than they were 100 years ago, when they were dramatically cheaper than they were 200 years ago.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#95

Post by mmarq »

MaKey wrote: post #87
Rinzler89 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning gives you the advantage of not flushing away a third of your income down the drain and instead owning something that's yours by the time you retire instead of paying your landlord's lease and then retiring in poverty as you won't be able to afford rent on your pension. Have you seen new rent prices right now? It's definitely not "extremely cheap". It's only extremely cheap for those in grandfathered contracts.

Living in a flat while also owning it might have been a viable option in the past but that ship has sailed quite a while ago. In major cities - which is where the good joobs are - you're looking at down-payments of 200-300k to arrive at your current rent and even then you'd pay the mortgage for 30 years.

You can make 8-9K a year investing 200K in diversified basket of government bonds. It would pay almost the entirety of my brother’s rent.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#96

Post by jupp0r »

roenxi wrote: post #5

Germany's energy production is below 1970s levels and their per capita figures are in a grim state [0]. As with much of Europe, it makes for worrying reading. It would be extremely impressive if they can remain a manufacturing leader through this. If there is less energy, someone will have to use less energy. As far as I can tell that means either compromising living standards or giving up some heavy manufacturing. I…

Energy consumption is a poor proxy for industrial output when policy is geared towards increasing efficiency and productivity.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#97

Post by lacker »

Is China really selling solar panels at below the cost of production? There seem to be a number of Germans making this claim, but the article never really tries to analyze whether this is true or not.

It seems like a big difference whether China can forever sell solar panels at current prices or cheaper, or whether they will eventually jack up the prices because this is unsustainable.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#98

Post by sgift »

majewsky wrote: post #92
nradov wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some reason that solar power industry investments would have to be financed using debt rather than equity?

As a German observing the political debate in Germany, it appears to me that either the relevant politicians are literally unaware of the equity option, or they are ideologically opposed to it for some reason. The same applies to political journalists, so we don't get a clear answer that way either. To go into opinion, I'm heavily leaning towards the "ideology" explanation. The current libertarian finance minister is…

> To go into opinion, I'm heavily leaning towards the "ideology" explanation

Yes, it's that. The usual slogan for that can be roughly translated "The government is not the better entrepreneur" ("Die Politik ist nicht der bessere Unternehmer"). It's usually trotted out by conservatives and libertarians in Germany if someone dares to suggest that the government could own some company or even only parts of it.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#99

Post by allarm »

mmarq wrote: post #69
Rinzler89 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am driving an electric car in Germany now and I built a new home Most people in Germany can't afford to buy an apartment let alone build a new house and you're taking as if your situation si representative for the average German. Just because you're wealthy enough to afford a new EV and to build a new modern house, doesn't eman Germany has no problems. You're proving the point that ecology is a tax on the poor, a…

> Most people in Germany can't afford to buy an apartment Most people in Germany don’t buy the apartments they live in, because renting in Germany gives you more or less the same rights as owning a leasehold flat in the UK. If you really want to buy a flat, tax-wise it is more convenient to rent it out and rent another one to live in. In many cities there are rent control mechanisms that make renting extremely cheape…

It's super difficult to rent a flat in Western Germany. There are literally long queues for viewing a single flat in Berlin. It's slightly better in the rest of Germany, but still difficult.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#100

Post by lossolo »

mmarq wrote: post #88
Rinzler89 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning gives you the advantage of not flushing away a third of your income down the drain and instead owning something that's yours by the time you retire instead of paying your landlord's lease and then retiring in poverty as you won't be able to afford rent on your pension. Have you seen new rent prices right now? It's definitely not "extremely cheap". It's only extremely cheap for those in grandfathered contracts.

A flat that cost 500-600K in Berlin would be rented out at 1000€ a month, that can’t increase more than the rent control allows. A mortgage would cost 3 times as much. So you’d be better off renting and investing the deposit, the stamp duty, notary costs and the 2000€ you save each month in government bonds.

Are you sure about these numbers? As ROI doesn't make any sense to me in context of the new investments built solely for rent. How does it work?
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