TPT November 2013

Global Marketplace

Perceiving ‘an existential threat’, US utility companies join forces against a tiny rival: rooftop solar electricity “We have found an amicable solution that will result in a new equilibrium on the European solar panel market at a sustainable price level.” The solution, announced by Karel De Gucht, the European trade commissioner, would settle a dispute over exports of low-cost solar panels from China. The deal announced in Brussels on 27 July will require some implementing. Fiercely criticised by the European manufacturers that had filed the complaint against the Chinese exporters, it also complicates a similar dispute between the US and China. But Mr De Gucht’s news averted the immediate threat of a wider trade war between two of the world’s largest economies. It remains to be seen whether a smaller-scale but quite as acrimonious dispute over solar panels, brewing in the US, has a chance of even a stopgap resolution. Diane Cardwell summarised the situation in the International Herald Tribune : For years, power companies have watched warily as solar panels have sprouted across the nation’s rooftops. Now, they are fighting hard to slow the spread. Ms Cardwell wrote, “Alarmed by what they say has become an existential threat to their business, utility companies are moving to roll back

reach $12.7bn by the end of the period. Software spending is expected to see the most significant boom, growing at a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 7.4 per cent to reach $3.2bn by 2017. The outlook is likewise positive for IT services, expected to grow at 4.9 per cent. At a significantly below-average rate of 0.7 per cent, the hardware sector will barely grow at all. In the nearer term, IDC Energy Insights (Framingham, Massachusetts), expects IT spending by Western European utilities of $10.4bn in 2013, with electricity companies accounting for 67 per cent ($7bn) of such spending. The major portion (62.9 per cent) of the overall total will be dedicated to IT services. According to Gaia Gallotti, research manager for the market intelligence and advisory firm, Western European utilities are “more than ever” striving to make the most of every dollar spent to achieve operational excellence and reduce inefficiencies. However, she wrote, “The need to comply with energy policies and regulation will continue to drive ICT (information and communications technology) investments, translating into an estimated total Western European utilities’ 2012–2017 CAGR of 4.9 per cent.”

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November 2013