为什么下沉的太阳价格对初创公司有害，对企业非常有用
Every week for the last few months, we've seen news from solar manufacturers that are feeling the pinch from dropping polysilicon prices. The price of the stuff, the key ingredient in photovoltaic panels, has dropped 89 percent since February 2008, which is great news for the solar proponents cheering the drop as a major step toward grid parity.
但是，太阳能制造商从新闻中加油助威：现在许多人正在努力使利润率下降。除了价格下跌，德国和意大利的进料关税的变化改变了商业案例的太阳能制造商在那里出售的太阳能制造商，使一些公司措手不及。
FirstEvergreen Solarand now Intel-backedSpectraWatthave declared bankruptcy. German solar giant Q-Cells, LDK Solar, and even industry darling First Solar all cut second quarter 2011 revenue projections. Q-Cells is now looking into insurance it could provide customers should the company declare bankruptcy.
但是，对于太阳能业务而言，一切都不是厄运：竞争激烈的市场正在为某些玩家带来好处。例如，公用事业正在发现自己能够向大型项目推动，这是由于廉价光伏面板的突然涌入而鼓舞人心的。企业购买者同样能够以两年前没有的方式制作现场太阳能项目。对于那些知道如何在比赛中脱颖而出的制造商，甚至还有一些亮点。
Smaller Prices Lead to Bigger Projects
一些太阳能制造商通过技术或创新的销售策略来区分自己。例如，总部位于中国的Yingli针对体育场所。基于科罗拉多州的多余太阳能生产池塘柜（CDTE）面板，可以承受令人难以置信的炎热温度。该公司已将其重点从欧洲转移到印度，那里的美德令人难以置信。
"The only problem in India is that they can't get enough CdTe panels," says Julian Hawking, the company's senior vice president of sales and marketing.
In the United States, the drop in price for photovoltaic panels has been good news for the industry in general, not least of which because of a spate of announcements about major utility-scale photovoltaic projects, all more feasible now that PV has suddenly become affordable.
In just the past week, solar farms have been announced in田纳西州,California, andFlorida, while Solar Millennium, the large California- and Nevada-based solar farm,宣布了转移的意图500 MW of planned capacity from concentrated solar power (CSP) to PV, citing the price drop as the driving factor.
Next page: Good news for solar-powered businesses
"The cost reductions that are happening have a real material impact on utility-scale solar projects," says Dan Shugar, CEO of photovoltaic manufacturer Solaria. "Just to give you an idea of scale, there's like .3 gigawatts of PV operating in California right now, but there's 8.6 gigawatts contracted for from power purchase agreements [PPA], and over 10 gigawatts announced."
太阳能企业的好消息
The drop in PV prices is also welcome news to enterprise buyers interested in owning their own on-site system.
"For some enterprise buyers the PPA model doesn't work. If you're a high-tech company like HP, Apple, or Google and you can't afford for your data centers to be down, you want the increased control over the system that comes with owning it directly," explains Peter Asmus, senior analyst for Pike Research.
In fact, sprinkled amongst the weekly announcements of lower-than-expected earnings from solar manufacturers, news of enterprise solar installations has been increasing. Darden Restaurants, which owns Red Lobster, Olive Garden and a number of other restaurant chains.announced this week它打算在佛罗里达州奥兰多附近的总部进行1.1MW的安装。
根据发言人Rich Jeffers的说法，该公司设计了新的LEED Gold认证总部，以包括太阳能，但是当收购导致建筑物上需要额外的平方英尺时，太阳能计划就被搁置了。最近的价格下跌帮助该项目再次发展。
杰弗斯说：“较低的定价当然没有受到伤害。”“我们是一家建造了很多设施的公司，因此在过去的几年中，我们已经看到建筑物的成本降低了，这使我们能够在新餐厅的增长中前进。我们已经看到了它在这个太阳能环境中，它使我们有机会向前迈进一点。”
屋顶太阳能装置不仅将有助于实现达登的减少目标，而且还可以看出其可持续性承诺。竞彩足球app怎么下载该系统建于四层楼高的停车场的顶层，可从528高速公路上查看，每天有成千上万的访客和当地人使用。
Next page: The other business benefits to solar installations
According to Pike's Asmus, in addition to the marketing benefit of an on-site solar system, a solar installation provides significant business benefits. There's the draw of having reliable power for operations, of course, but having an on-site system also enables companies to build their own microgrids, effectively creating a power island impervious to any brownout or blackout that might plague the grid.
特别是PV还具有灵活性和维护优势。“由于微电网的能力和几乎不需要维护，军方确实喜欢现场太阳能，尤其是PV说。”
For IKEA, a company with a long-time commitment to sustainability, on-site solar has been a natural fit, and plummeting prices only make for a sweeter deal.
“在宜家，我们很大程度上是控制自己的命运的心态：我们始终购买自己的土地并拥有自己的建筑物，因此一旦我们对太阳能感兴趣，我们就对拥有自己的系统非常感兴趣，”宜家公共事务总监约瑟夫·罗斯（Joseph Roth）说。“现在的情况，价格下跌，对我们来说效果更好。”
According to Roth, it's not just that the panels themselves are cheaper, but that there are more providers and installers out there than before, which makes for a more competitive marketplace and creates deeper expertise ... both situations that deliver benefits to enterprise buyers.
"It allows potential solar purchasers to really have a good pool to choose from when selecting their provider," Roth says. "We're able to do more solar now because of all of these factors coming together."
After testing on-site solar out at its Tempe, Ariz. store in 2010,IKEA made a commitment to roll it out在美国各地的几家商店，包括其新的丹佛商店，在那里太阳能被烘烤到建筑过程中。丹佛商店还结合了地热功率，作为其加热和冷却系统的一部分。
罗斯说，地热是另一种可再生能源技术，它变得更加负担得起。他说：“但是，凭借地热和太阳能，不仅仅是它们现在更实惠，而且更容易获得。”“现在的技术和知识现在就可以允许您在安装它之前真正分析潜在的应用程序。”
由CC许可的顶部照片詹姆斯·克里德兰（James Cridland）.
