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Sold the FSLR calls. I now have extra cash in my option account. I wish I had the guts to pay up for some IOC calls. It sure would be nice knowing WHEN something is going to happen.
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Well, you could buy some Jan out of the money lottery tickets and sell some puts to make them cheaper or even free. The worst thing that could happen is that you have to buy some more stock if things haven't happened before then.
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I have been holding a bunch of the Jan $65 calls that I recently sold (half) of Jan $105 calls to cover. My out of pocket cost was around $5 for a max gain of $40. I don't consider anything in Jan to be cheep or even lottey tickets when the $105 are almost $7.
Even the Sept $80 calls are almost $5. If the stock hits $90 in the next two weeks, the option will only double. Too rich for me.
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Can cadmium telluride PV efficiency give silicon a run for its money?
Eric Wesoff: April 9, 2013
First Solar (FSLR), the thin-film solar leader, just announced a new cadmium telluride solar module efficiency record that absolutely crushes the previous record, also held by First Solar.
First Solar achieved an NREL-confirmed efficiency of 16.1 percent, which erases the previous record of 14.4 percent that the firm set last year. First Solar also set a high mark for CdTe open-circuit voltage, an indicator of PV panel performance, hitting 903.2 millivolts. In addition, First Solar set a new world record for CdTe solar cell efficiency of 18.7 percent last month.
Setting records is one thing, translating that to commercial shipments is another -- and it's something First Solar has done well over the years.
First Solar has upped its module conversion efficiency roadmap, increasing its lead production line panel efficiency target for 2015 to 15 percent to 16.2 percent. First Solar also extended its 2017 module conversion efficiency roadmap to targets of 16.2 percent to 16.9 percent in 2016 and 16.4 percent to 17.1 percent in 2017 for its lead production line. These target numbers are starting to look like silicon specs of today.
First Solar's average production module efficiency was 12.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, while its "lead line" was producing modules with 13.1 percent efficiency during the fourth quarter.
First Solar is working with Intermolecular as part of its effort to improve panel performance. First Solar has to keep its efficiency climbing while reducing cost in order to keep up with plunging crystalline silicon costs.
Other firms looking to innovate in CdTe include Reel Solar, Bloo Solar, and Calyxo. First Solar remains the thin-film solar leader, followed by Solar Frontier, which is working in the CIGS material system.
Non-updated chart from NREL. Click to enlarge.
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Another tribute to Gator..
First Solar’s strong finances are helping fund innovation and drive down the cost of solar power.
Innovation in solar cell technology has slowed as startups struggle to get a foothold in a tough market and solar panel manufacturers delay purchasing the equipment they need to manufacture more efficient cells. But First Solar, one of the world’s largest solar companies, continues to invest in boosting the efficiency of its solar cells.
The company, which is based in Tempe, Arizona, announced this week that it had set a new world record in efficiency for thin-film cadmium telluride solar panels. The equipment it uses to produce the record-setting panels will eventually be installed on all its production lines. It also announced the acquisition of Tetrasun, a startup with high-efficiency silicon technology that First Solar hopes to bring to market next year. First Solar’s stock jumped from $29 to over $40 on Tuesday and is still above $35 a share.
First Solar is able to make these investments because it is in a much better position than other major solar manufacturers, most of which are either declaring bankruptcy or on the brink of it (see “Why We Need More Solar Companies to Fail ” and “Solar Downturn Casts a Shadow over Innovation &rdquo . It’s doing better for at least two reasons. Its solar panels are cheaper to make than conventional silicon solar panels, which has given it better profit margins. And it was one of the first companies to expand beyond making solar panels to become a project developer, designing and installing complete solar power plants. These projects create a steady market for First Solar’s panels and help it drive down costs in areas besides the panels themselves, which account for less than a quarter of the expense of solar power. The company’s good balance sheet and project experience also help lower the risk to investors, helping it secure better financing rates. And financing is now the biggest single contributor to the cost of solar power, accounting for 36 percent of the total for large installations and even more for smaller ones.
The industry is “getting so good on the technology that finance costs and project development costs are becoming dominant,” says Raffi Garabedian, First Solar’s chief technology officer. “We’re entering an era—the next five years, I think—where a lot of effort is going to be applied to reducing the cost of financing these systems.”
By next year solar power could cost as little as 10 cents per kilowatt-hour without subsidies and thus become cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels in many markets around the world, First Solar says. It expects to lower costs to 7.5 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2016, bringing solar power close in price to one of the cheapest sources of power in the United States—a new natural-gas power plant, which the U.S. Energy Information Administration expects to average 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour over its lifetime.
Thin-film solar panels are less efficient than conventional silicon panels, and efficiency not only determines the number of panels needed for a project but affects costs for installation and financing. However, First Solar has been closing the efficiency gap. By the end of last year, the company’s cadmium telluride panels were converting about 13 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity, compared with roughly 15.5 percent for silicon. As it installs more of the new equipment that allowed it to make its record-setting panel, that figure should increase. By 2016, the company expects its average solar panels to reach nearly 17 percent efficiency, with much of the improvement coming from advances that have already been demonstrated it in its labs. Silicon panels will also improve over that time, but First Solar expects to have comparable efficiency at that point. Garabedian thinks it could be possible to reach 19 percent efficiency within five years.
Even with these advances, First Solar doesn’t expect to be able to compete in certain markets—especially in places like Japan. The solar market has been booming there since the Fukushima disaster caused nuclear power plants to be shut down, but most of the demand is for rooftop solar. With that technology, space is limited and costs for installation are relatively high, putting a premium on efficiency.
That’s why First Solar is turning to Tetrasun, which has developed a single-crystal silicon panel with an efficiency rate over 20 percent. First Solar says Tetrasun’s version of this high-efficiency technology will be cheaper to manufacture than similarly efficient—but expensive—silicon solar panels from SunPower and Panasonic.
The Tetrasun investment could be risky, says Shyam Mehta, a senior analyst at GTM Research. “Tetrasun’s technology is far from being proven as commercially viable—right now, it is a company of 14 people with little more than a pilot cell manufacturing plant,” he says. New solar technologies have been difficult to scale up, so a goal of mass-producing its panels by next year may be overly ambitious.
While improvements in efficiency may be the most powerful way to reduce the cost of solar power in the long term, most of the reductions in the next two years are expected to come in financing, which is far more expensive for solar than for many other capital projects, says Travis Bradford, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and president of the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development, a nonprofit research firm. He says First Solar is in a good position to lower these costs. “Suntech [the Chinese solar panel manufacturer] just went bankrupt, and most of the Chinese competitors have really bad balance sheets,” Bradford says. “But nobody thinks First Solar is going away.”
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By Commodity HQ May 24, 2013 2:00 pm
The solar industry was down 60% in 2011 and 30% in 2012, but in 2013, one company may be leading the industry into positive territory.
Solar energy has been an investing nightmare since the financial crisis. Due to the failure of Solyndra, and the lack of subsidies as the government instead focuses on the failing economy, the solar industry has been burned. In 2011, solar was down over 60% and down another 30% in 2012, but this year, First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR ) may have finally turned things around for this dying industry.
First Solar in the Driver’s Seat
Formed in 1999 after True North Partners acquired Solar Cells, First Solar went public seven years later to become the first pure alternative energy company to be a component of the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX). Even during the recession, First Solar received a number of awards commending its continuing growth while other firms were dying or being overrun by Chinese alternatives.
First Solar’s main business comes from the development of photovoltaic modules, which utilize cadmium telluride (CdTe) as a semiconductor for power. This departs from the norm of the industry, as silicon-based modules were until recently considered more efficient, but First Solar announced earlier this year that it had solved this discrepancy. The new standard panels have improved the efficiency rate from 13% to 16%, making them far more competitive with their silicon counterparts.
Even before this announcement, First Solar was on its way up, reporting amazing earnings last quarter, which caused its stock price to jump, and bringing other solar and alternative energy funds along for the ride. FSLR is up nearly 60% this year and the Claymore/MAC Global Solar Index ETF (NYSEARCA:TAN ), one of the most heavily traded alternative energy ETFs, is up over 47%, largely guided by FSLR. While these huge leaps back to relevance have been great for the alternative energy space, now that FSLR has gotten everyone so excited, it will need to live up to big expectations to keep solar in the forefront
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One reason for the under-utilization is that First Solar solar panels are not as efficient as Chinese solar companies. The average conversion efficiency for First Solar modules in fourth quarter was 13.4%. This is lower than the average module conversion efficiency of Chinese tier-1 solar companies of 16% and significantly lower than industry-leading SunPower's (NASDAQ: SPWR ) X-Series panels, which have a conversion efficiency of 21.5%.
The relative inefficiency of First Solar's modules is keeping the company away from the current hot area in solar, distributed energy. Distributed energy is currently growing at a very fast rate and investors are bidding up distributed energy companies like SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY) and SunPower for their future growth and potential.
Many investors view distributed energy businesses as superior to traditional solar panel makers because distributed energy companies will see their margins increase as solar costs come down. Distributed energy is also insulated from solar panel oversupply, as those companies realize their cash flows from the long-term contracts rather than one-time orders from utility companies.
How Can First Solar Inc Reignite Its Stock?
This about sums it up
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First Solar Inc. gets about 65 percent of its revenue from selling giant solar farms to utilities, a market that’s slowing after its best customers bought all the clean energy they need. The manufacturer is missing out on the current boom in rooftop solar, which is surging since SolarCity Corp. (SCTY), backed by billionaire Elon Musk, helped popularize a way to finance home installations. First Solar’s thin-film panels use a different technology that’s heavier and less efficient than the polysilicon-based panels that dominate the industry. That makes them poorly suited for rooftops, where space is scarce. It’s part of the reason the company has focused on selling big projects to utilities.
First Solar Seeking Growth to Replace Giant Desert Plants - Bloomberg
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03-24-2014, 02:27 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-24-2014, 02:32 PM by admin.)
Shares of First Solar, the largest U.S. solar-panel maker, are soaring this week. The stock jumped nearly 32% in the past five trading sessions, hitting levels not seen since September 2011. What’s behind the move?
Why the run in solar stocks is just beginning | Talking Numbers - Yahoo Finance
First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) was the biggest newsmaker this week when it met with investors to give guidance and a technology roadmap for the future. I took a detailed look at the presentations here, but there are a few takeaways for the whole industry. First, First Solar doesn't see the large projects it's relied on recently to continue. Instead, utility scale projects less than 100 MW and commercial installations on large rooftops will be more prevalent because they're easier to fit close to demand. The changing trend is one reason First Solar is trying to improve the efficiency of its panels to compete in distributed energy.
This Week's Solar Industry Recap
Things have really changed quite a bit in a short time here..
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The (self-updating) graph is interesting, bouncing off the $60 support, (presently at $62.20):
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Glutton for punishment FSLR
