Spain's Solar-Power Collapse Dims Subsidy Model Article (Solar Power bubble popped!)

WSJ Online ^ | September 8th, 2009 | By ANGEL GONZALEZ and KEITH JOHNSON

[2banana]

In 2008, Spain accounted for half the world's new solar-power installations in terms of wattage, thanks to government subsidies to promote clean energy. But late last year, as the global economic crisis worsened, the government dramatically scaled back those subsidies and capped the amount of subsidized solar power that could be installed.

Factories world-wide that had ramped up production of solar-power components found that demand for solar panels was plummeting, leaving a glut in supply and pushing prices down. Job cuts followed.

"The solar industry in 2009 has been undermined by [a] collapse in demand due to the decision by Spain," says Henning Wicht, a solar-power analyst at research group iSuppli.

...

As a result, Spain's solar capacity last year increased to 3,342 megawatts from 695 megawatts, the size of a coal plant, a year earlier. Government subsidies for solar power jumped to €1.1 billion ($1.6 billion) in 2008 from €214 million in 2007.

Solar power "was a financial product, not an energy solution," says Ignacio Sánchez Galán, chairman of Iberdrola, the world's biggest renewable-energy company. Iberdrola has largely shunned solar because wind power is cheaper and requires less land.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

At your service. Just like to set things straight. There are still a lot of people who believe in the pie in the sky.

[SAJ]

You and I are all square, m’FRiend. Pie-in-the-sky, or, as I like to call it, ‘The Big Rock-Candy Mountain Syndrome’, needs to be debunked at every turn, and best wishes in your efforts along these lines.