WCA September 2012

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2012 63
From theamericas
Citing overwhelming Chinese competition,
another government-supported
US manufacturer of solar panels
closes up shop
Abound Solar Inc, a company that borrowed $70 million
against its $400 million Energy Department guarantee to
complete a factory in Colorado, announced 28th June that it
would suspend operations.
Abound said its thin-film panels were not competitive with
Chinese products, the same reason cited by the Fremont,
California-based solar equipment manufacturer Solyndra,
which closed its doors last year. Solyndra drew down nearly
all of its $535 million loan guarantee before it failed.
Abound said in a statement that it would let go all 125
employees and file for bankruptcy within the week. The
Loveland, Colorado-based company, formerly known
as AVA Solar, put together its early funding under a
grant programme begun during the George W Bush
administration, and the project had attracted enthusiastic
support from lawmakers of both major political parties.
Its plans, now abandoned, included a manufacturing facility
at a closed automotive plant in Tipton County, Indiana.
Abound Solar produced panels that made electricity directly
from sunlight, using a cadmium telluride chemistry which
promised a cost advantage over silicon cells. But that
benefit eroded as silicon cells plunged in price.
The struggling company announced in February that it was
closing down its factory to conserve resources while it tried
to start production of a more advanced product.
Whether or not the attempt would have succeeded, given
time, is now a moot point, but there is no question that
this second conspicuous collapse of a government-sup-
ported solar company quickly became a political football.
Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential
nominee, had already used the failure of Solyndra – a
manufacturer of innovative cylindrical solar systems
for commercial rooftops – to impugn President Barack
Obama’s support for clean energy companies.
Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and chairman of a
sub-committee of the House Government Reform and
Oversight Committee, similarly seized the opportunity
presented by Abound Solar’s failure. “Our government,”
he said, “is not good at picking winners and losers in the
marketplace but has certainly proved it is good at wasting
taxpayer dollars.”
❖ For its part, the Energy Department on 28th June
released letters it received in 2009 from members
of Congress representing residents of Colorado and
Indiana urging the grant of the loan guarantee. Four
Indiana Republicans were among the signers, as were
Indiana’s Democratic senator and several Colorado
Democrats.
If success has many fathers, so – the Obama
administration was clearly asserting – does failure.
❖ Abound Solar said it could have been profitable if it
had had large-scale manufacturing underway, but
“aggressive pricing actions from Chinese solar panel
companies have made it very difficult for an early stage
start-up company like Abound to scale in current market
conditions.”
Other American manufacturers of solar panels brought a
trade case against Chinese manufacturers, claiming the
Chinese government had improperly subsidised them, and
won substantial tariffs on the Chinese firms.
Even so, analysts interviewed by Matthew L Wald of
the New York Times agreed that a global oversupply of
manufacturing capacity was making life very difficult for
solar panel makers.
“The less cost-competitive vendors are exiting the market,”
Amir Rozwadowski, an analyst at Barclays, told Mr Wald.
“In the near term it’s going to be painful for vendors that
aren’t cost-competitive.” (“A Second US-Supported Maker
of Solar Panels Will Close,” 28th June).
Immigration
Policies that force foreign-born
innovators to leave the United States are
said to injure the nation’s economy
If President Obama suffered a recent setback as a
proponent of clean energy (“Manufacturer of Solar
Panels,” above), he won a major victory on another front:
immigration. On 29th June, the US Supreme Court struck
down three of the four main provisions in Arizona’s tough
SB 1070 immigration law.
The Court left in place a fourth provision, requiring local
police officers during routine stops to check the status of
anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. But, even
here, the Court’s narrow reading left such searches open to
legal challenge on grounds that they violate a prohibition of
racial profiling, as well as other laws.
To the extent that the nation’s highest court is pointing the
way toward a more immigrant-friendly United States, it is
not only obliging the White House; it is acting, as well, in the
best interests of the national economy.
A study released 26th June shows that immigrants played a
role in more than three out of four patents generated at the
top American research universities. Nearly all the patents
were in science, technology, engineering and maths – the
so-called STEM fields that are a crucial driver of job growth.
Some of the patents that were reviewed for the report have
in fact led to business ventures.
Conducted by the Partnership for a New American
Economy, a non-profit group co-founded by Mayor Michael
Bloomberg of New York, the report points out that, while
many of the world’s top foreign-born innovators are trained
at US universities, after graduation they face “daunting or
insurmountable immigration hurdles that force them to
leave and bring their talents elsewhere.”
Statue of Liberty Image from BigStockPhoto.com
Photographer: Marty