Friday, April 20, 2012

Blog #13: First Solar Struggles Amid Decline Of Thin-Film Solar Market

The article discusses about how the First Solar is suffering a decline of thin film solar technology market.  According to GTM Research report, the company is down from eighteen percent in 2009.  From this difficult process, First Solar and other thin film solar panel makers to battle against silicon solar group manufacturers, which increased manufacture and decreased their prices since 2009.  First Solar, the largest thin film solar international company, said they are closing some German factories and layoff around thirty percent of its global labor force.  Due to the layoffs, MJ Shiao, a senior analyst at GTM said it is more expensive to run than other companies.  The thin film technology wants to the use of non-silicon equipments to change sunlight into electricity.  Thin films promised to be cheaper to make because they would use fewer of equipments to make solar cells that would be slender than silicon cells.
In my opinion, the First Solar and other thin film solar panel have a long way to get out of the decline scale.  The First Solar has to spend their knowledge to different countries like China or the United Kingdom.  This strategy would help their company to get out of this situation.  Another way to balance the needs of thin film is try to design a less expensive solar technology.  The First Solar is a helpful organization to help built solar technology in different counties.  To keep the business running, the solar company has to ways to stay in business with the thin film market so it can continue to help other countries. 
Part 1: http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2012/04/18/how-first-solar-struggles-amid-decline-of-thin-film-solar-market/
Part 2: http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2012/04/18/how-first-solar-struggles-amid-decline-of-thin-film-solar-market/2/

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