Bosch Finds Solar Business Unprofitable, Exits 477
New submitter rwise2112 writes "German engineering company Bosch said Friday that it is abandoning its solar energy business, because there is no way to make it economically viable.'We have considered the latest technological advances, cost-reduction potential and strategic alignment, and there have also been talks with potential partners,' Bosch CEO Volkmar Denner said. 'However, none of these possibilities resulted in a solution for the solar energy division that would be economically viable over the long term.'"
I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I love having a solar panel on my pack when I'm out hiking. It is a nice option when you're somewhere without access to the grid.
solar panel on pack (Score:2)
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If I were hiking, I'd go for a battery charger for a flashlight, cell phone and/or GPS. I know people who'd go for coffee pots or powered water filters.
But mostly I can see chargers for those little battery powered nicities.
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Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Funny)
I have a solar panel just in case all the major cities are wiped out.
That way I'll still have the internet. Right?
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That's some good thinking! Shows you have your priorities straight.
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...but part of the design of the core of the Internet is that it is, in fact, designed to survive a nuclear war [wikipedia.org].
Which isn't to say you'd have much of the Internet left, but if it wasn't fried by EMP, you could start reconfiguring your routers to connect with surviving nodes.
The backbone of the internet should survive as it was intended, but the more local components (ISPs) would probably fail. Many customers only have 99% or 99.9% uptime, and this is with the power grid working more-or-less correctly.
For this to actually work, we would probably find ourselves switching to a loose-coupled wireless internet (at least for the ISP piece), which is something that has been researched.
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Yeah Cisco totally hooked me up with this $22 000 router. What a bargain!
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Perhaps this is some subtle internet humor, but if you actually follow that link, it contradicts what our ubiquitous friend Anonymous Coward says. The bit about surviving a nuclear war is discussed in a section labeled "Misconceptions of design goals".
(And as long as I'm responding to trolls, may I point out that Al Gore does indeed have a plausible claim to being the guy who created the inte [wikipedia.org]
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Re:You laugh... (Score:5, Funny)
Blasphemy.
Inventing something implies he did not know it already.
The Omnipotent Lord our Jobs willed the internet into existence when humanity was ready to ascend one step closer to true enlightenment.
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'm also aware without government subsidies, it's not economically viable.
Nor are most things.
Government subsidies have been a fact of life since the days of the Pharaohs.
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I thought it was Napoleon's troops' government-subsidized artillery practice, not the original government-subsidized construction.
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You are an idiot comparing bananas to goats. The end. Your post that follows this one is like claiming that roads are not important, or keeping sea ways clear is not important, etc.. Governments are supposed to subsidize projects which better society.
Coal, Gas, and Oil are known to be horrible for society. If you have doubts, please go purchase a cheap plot of land next to a plant or refinery and take up permanent residence (How cheap the land is should compel you to purchase right? And yes, that land i
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Insightful)
"Coal, Gas, and Oil are known to be horrible for society."
Read that. Analyze it. Know that it's nonsensical.
This is the kind of thing people point to when they want to discredit environmentalism.
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Pea soup fog, mine fires burning for decades, mining towns, oil tycoons with private armies, ocean acidification, all kinds of other air pollution, war after war after war, etc. There are counterpoints to all of these. Relatively cheap, plentiful energy is a counterpoint. Nevertheless, there are enough points on the horrible side that "Read that. Analyze it. Know that it's nonsensical." is nonsensical in its own right. You can argue the point, but you can't just tritely wave it aside like that.
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OK, here's an explanation for you:
Society would not exist if it were not for coal, oil, and gas being widely and commonly used. Not resembling anything you're familiar with.
Instead, we would all be crowded into a narrow band around the equator. Some would live in the northern and southern reaches and would cut and burn all of the wood in forests to maintain such a lifestyle. Your quality of life would be, at best, similar to a Norseman or Dutchman during 900AD.
Smelting iron would never have become commonpla
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Insightful)
Every generation reinvests into future generations. About 30 years ago some worthless fuck decided he'd lie to the mentally ignorant, and say that government was always the problem. Those worthless fucks now think that they don't need a government, mostly because they're too fucking stupid to understand all the benefits they use EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY from the government.
I'm sorry you're too fucking stupid to understand that, so i'll help you put: Look at it this way... that money being taken from you isn't taxes, it's YOU paying for all the benefits YOU use. Or would you prefer to be fucking stupid AND a thief?
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I'm sure glad I don't get all the 'benefits' I pay for.
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Insightful)
Cutting government spending is also an investment into future generations.
Look at it this way... that money being taken from you isn't taxes, it's YOU paying for all the benefits YOU use.
Now look who's being fucking stupid. Call his bluff. Cut the taxes and the benefits. Then when he's doing really well despite life's adversities, you can tell him "I told you so".
The biggest threat to our society isn't terrorists, or the national debt, it's fucking clueless asshats who can't think more than it takes to regurgitate a bumper sticker. People like you piss on every American who's come before that wanted this country to succeed, all because of stupid fucking ideology. Your trickle down economics is and was bullshith; a lie, and only mental midgets still believe that fucking crap.
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, most things benefit from some level of government subsidy.
If you are competing with one of those, and you don't have *any* subsidies, then you're not economically viable because you have higher cost relative to your competition.
Fossil fuels and nuclear power enjoy generous government subsidies, in areas including tax loopholes, military security support for oil producers, cut-rate socialized liability insurance for nuclear risks that private insurers wouldn't touch with a hundred-foot pole, saddling the public with the costs of environmental damage... the list goes on and on. If solar power gets no subsidies relative to all that, of course it can't compete.
If you somehow magically removed *all* government subsidies on everything, then solar power might be "economically viable" again. But thousands of years of history, and human nature in general, show that it is just not going to happen in the real world. Ever, Deal with it.
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'm also aware without government subsidies,
The problem aren't government subsidies, but simply that companies in China can produce cheaper solar cells then Bosch can. The solar business is full of companies and lots of competition and it's hard to get a lot of money out of that.
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Informative)
China's government subsidizes their solar companies to a much greater degree than the US does; that's why Solyndra couldn't compete.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0320/China-subsidized-solar-panels-US-finds.-Are-tariffs-the-right-response [csmonitor.com]
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for continuing to fund research into improving photovoltaics - they're going to get better eventually. But people have to get it through their heads that the dream of powering our society with sunlight is at present just that - a dream. There are specialized applications (particularly off-grid) where solar is competitive or even ideal. But for powering our society? The reality is that it's currently just about the worst possible choice. And trying to force it into market acceptance with big government incentives will result in a net economic loss, meaning its contribution to the standard of living is negative.
If you want to insist on clean renewables, wind is far more viable.
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From the very link you posted, "An EU funded research study known as ExternE, or Externalities of Energy, undertaken over the period of 1995 to 2005 found that the cost of producing electricity from coal or oil would double over its present value, and the cost of electricity production from gas would increase by 30% if external costs such as damage to the environment and to human health, from the particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, chromium VI, river water alkalinity, mercury poisoning and arsenic emission
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Informative)
But I'm also aware without government subsidies,
The problem aren't government subsidies, but simply that companies in China can produce cheaper solar cells then Bosch can. The solar business is full of companies and lots of competition and it's hard to get a lot of money out of that.
Some solar PV companies in China are also exiting the market. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/20/174828432/chinese-solar-panel-maker-suntech-goes-bankrupt [npr.org]
Fabrication costs need to go down for makers, and ROI needs to go up for consumers.
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Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Insightful)
*Breathing* does not contribute to CO2 in any harmful way. It's a natural cycle as that CO2 was removed from the environment within the last year (or 20 once Twinkies are back!). Same for burning wood. It was recently taken out of the atmosphere and put back, net zero over a timeframe the earth can handle and still keep us alive.
Adding millions of years worth of CO2 to the atmosphere in just a century is much much different.
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Everything has start up manufacturing/infrastructure costs. It always costs more to 'operate' something at a grid type scale than it does to make it.
Lots of CO2 gets emitted producing all the steel and concrete needed for a coal plant. And then it keeps on emitting throughout its life.
Solar has no fuel costs and no emissions in operation. Lemme know when can do that.
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But I'm also aware without government subsidies, it's not economically viable. On the large scale.
The countries willing to subsidize account for a smaller and smaller fraction of CO2 emissions. To make a meaningful contribution, and be widely deployed in India, Africa, etc., solar has to be cost effective without subsidies. If the money that was poured into subsidies went instead into researching and developing green energy solutions that actually make sense, we would be far better off today.
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Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Informative)
But I'm also aware without government subsidies, it's not economically viable. On the large scale.
Yet. The point at which solar energy becomes cheaper than the competition is called 'grid parity', and it's already happened in some countries [triplepundit.com]. Over the next few years we'll see it happen in more and more places.
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:4, Informative)
In some places include the mobile and remote. In my case, I picked up a pannel for the motorhome. Payback on the house is beyond the life of the panel at current electric rates with hydro, wind, and large scale solar nearby. On the motorhome, the longer I can leave the gas generator shut off the better I and my neighbors like it. Besides, electric generation with a motorhome genset is not in parity with local grid rates, thus the payback is measured in a few summers on the road.
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So, if profitability is just around the corner, why is Bosch bailing?
Germany is a bad example (Score:3)
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:4, Funny)
The problem with that is that you usually need lighting when the sun DOESN'T shine.
Thats what batteries are for.
Yes, yes, I am totally aware that this is a novel concept that has many sceptics and cynics out there, but trust me on this one. Really.
Re:I love working with PV cells (Score:5, Insightful)
Charge coal to handle that and it fast becomes unprofitable.
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FINANCIALLY viable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FINANCIALLY viable (Score:5, Informative)
Re:FINANCIALLY viable (Score:5, Informative)
It's called dumping and it is working, Chinese dumping was the main reason EU and US removed the benefits.
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What I find ironic is that the US Congress "saved" Harley when there was legit competition from overseas motorcycle makers by levying punitive tariffs.
However, something as vital to our national security as energy independence, Congress lets China dump panels on the market for less than the cost of the rare earths in them.
Ironic this. Even more ironic was the fact that 3-5 months before the dumping happened, every major US solar maker was being inundated by intrusion attempts, both foiled or successful.
I'm
Re:FINANCIALLY viable (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would you not want to let China handle all the pollution and production issues and then sell you the product at less than the cost of the raw materials?
Just stock up enough of them to give local production time to start up if the freebies stop flowing in.
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Don't worry the bikes that Harley was complaining about was 2 cycle dirt bikes, the Japanese had developed that market in the US, with some competion from Europeans like Husqavarna; Harley jumped into the market and got their asses handed to them. Even with the protective tariffs, Harley got beaten in that market. If I want a Harley I want a a 2 cylinder rumblely vibrating cruiser with massive torque, not a dirt bike.
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The 2 stroke dirt bikes was a 70's folly by HD. They imported and rebadged Aeromacchi bikes from Italy. They were true pieces of shit, even less reliable than the Bultaco's of Spain.
Re:FINANCIALLY viable (Score:5, Interesting)
ENVIRONMENTALLY viable (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's called productivity.
The manufacturing costs for manufacturing a generally similar in both Europe and China, balancing German automation + power costs vs. Chinese labor costs.
What isn't the same is the after-cost of adhering to German vs. Chinese environmental regulations.
Most industrialized nations could easily save their local manufacturing bases by imposing requirements on products being manufactured in accordance to local environmental standards in the locations they are sold. It's optional whether they would want to impose environmental tarrifs and take the product anyway, despite "dirty" manufacturing, or simply block entry of the product into the country.
For China, depending on how far up the supply chain you wanted to push the requirement, you could take it to the point of requireing scrubbers on the stacks of the coal-fired power plants that powered the manufacturing facilities.
It's ironic that environmentalism has succeeded only in moving the mess out of view (to China), rather than keeping the mess from being injected into the global ecosystem anyway. But at least health care costs tend to go down when you have no local manufacturing going on, due to a reduction in pollutants.
Re:FINANCIALLY viable (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surprised they didn't institute anti-dumping tariffs like they did when Chinese companies start dumping cheap clothing on Europe. Considering the EU's usual tendencies I wonder what are the distinguishing factors here.
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"The solar energy division, which employs about 3,000 people, lost around 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) last year."
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Well, they just need to think like printer manufacturers.
Just give the damn solar panels away and make your money off the photons.
Unprofitable (Score:5, Informative)
"European makers of solar energy have accused low cost Asian competitors, especially manufacturers from China, of creating the trouble for their western peers, partly by flooding the market with products at prices far below production costs."
Re:Unprofitable (Score:5, Funny)
I hate it when countries make stuff for us for free or below cost. Maybe we should punish them buy sending them some free/discounted stuff. I'm sure that will teach them a lesson they won't soon forget.
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Maybe we should punish them buy sending them some free/discounted stuff. I'm sure that will teach them a lesson they won't soon forget.
That does nothing to help our domestic market and would probably involve government subsidies (aka spending) just to hurt China.
Re:Unprofitable (Score:5, Insightful)
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That worked really well with Rare Earth Metals..
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/23/rare_earth_non_monopoly/ [theregister.co.uk]
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It's a huge problem if they selling them below their own production costs.
You are ignoring the real fundamental problem with this market in order to play the "those evil Chinese and their dumping" card. Its being intellectually dishonest.
The real fundamental problem is that few people want these PV cells even when sold well below cost. This Chinese dumping and its results is a very good indicator that we arent anywhere close to a healthy sustainable PV market that ultimately benefits everyone involved. Maybe someday we will be, but that day certainly isnt today.
We could argu
Re:Unprofitable (Score:5, Informative)
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And then.. someone new enters the market.. and consumers got great deals on the cars at the expense of the "Evil Car Corporation"
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While I agree that the dumping is a problem high cost is an issue all around. It makes sense to invest in this technology IMO but with power prices where they are it's a low incentive to get people to move. The payoff on the system I looked at was something well over 10 years - who stays in a home that long? I do and have but we're now talking 1- MORE years! Push costs down on this technology and I can see people investing in it but until that happens even the panels being dumped aren't enough to push price
Re:Unprofitable (Score:5, Insightful)
The payoff on the system I looked at was something well over 10 years - who stays in a home that long? I do and have but we're now talking 1- MORE years!
1) Half of home owners stay in their home at least 10 years. Buying a new home is a good time to do remodeling and renovations, so it's also a good time to install PV solar.
2) Roughly a third of home owners stay in their home at least 20 years.
3) A PV system adds value to the home which can be used as a potential selling point and increase the asking price if you decide to move, so it's not like the entire unrecovered cost of the installation is lost.
=Smidge=
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Honestly in my area, until the bottom fell out, people really didn't seem to stay long. I also was truly worried that rather than adding to the value of the home a new homeowner might try to bring the price down over maintenance concerns - I know I'd be a little hesitant without fully checking a system out and I LIKE this stuff. The cost was just too high for the production offered. Make me the same offer at say $15K for 3K or maybe a little more for 4K and I think I'd have jumped on it. That's not cheap bu
Dow taught the Germans how to respond. (Score:2)
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/herbert-dow-and-predatory-pricing#axzz2OIXQkkrp [fee.org]
Saving in your bank is unprofitable (Score:2)
Organic growth (Score:2)
Instead of mega projects we need a hybrid domestic appliance refrigeration unit.
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Solar is great (Score:5, Interesting)
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Which electric car?
I have been looking and none seem to be worth it just yet. As much as I would love to abandon gas I can't see spending luxury car money for a econobox.
Re:Solar is great (Score:5, Insightful)
I looked into this myself. With the 30% credit and for a 3KW system the vendor was offering it was right around $30K using 280watt panels. My bills are actually pretty low, well below $200 on the worst month and power here is fairly cheap. The guy was figuring efficiency levels fairly low and I'd have probably done better but the payoff for this system was quite long. I decided to skip the system, the wattage potential was too low and the payoff far too long. I have a South facing home but apparently need more roof. The vendor also seemed to be pricing high and with no State incentives I just couldn't see myself doing it, I wish I could.
Bosch exiting the market isn't good IMO. They have been doing this a very long time and for them to find the business untenable really signals that the market may not be healthy. I do understand their frustration at the dumping that has occurred but if you price panels those are the ones that are actually affordable. They really need to drive prices downward or the price of electricity needs to rise a great deal before it's worth it - at least when there are so few incentives. Overall I would agree that we need to get more people into solar, yes even with Govt. incentives. Once the install hurdle is passed the damned things produce power for a good long time during peak usage hours. It simply makes sense as a nation to do this IMO but until prices to the consumer come down I don't see any mass movement in that direction :-9
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Then they were ripping you off severely. You can buy 300 watt panels for about $400 apiece delivered (you would have to split the order with one of your neighbors because of minimum quantity requirements, mind you). And a 3 kW inverter should cost under 2 grand, for a measly $6,000 in total materials cost. That suggests they were going to charge you a whopping $24,000
Re:Solar is great (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a solar installer, based in Switzerland.
For $25K I fly with my buddy to wherever you are (presumably in the US somewhere), and install a 3kW PV-System, everything included. Seriously.
Here is my offer:
Panels: 12 Trina TSM 245 $200 each, total $2400
Inverter: SMA Sunny Boy 3000 $1200
Installation Cost: $3000
Transport Cost Material/Tools: $2000
Flight from Europe to somewhere US and back for two person: $5000
Getting all permits and eventually "bribe", err hire a local electrician: $2000
2 weeks accomodation, which consist of 13days vaccation and 1 day working: $2000
Profit: $7400
Just give me a call
Markus Amsler
Eigenstrom GmbH
http://www.eigenstrom.ch
markus.amsler@eigenstrom.ch
++41 62 877 18 14
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Government can, and should, create the money to further the General Welfare.
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And if electricity is 10 cents per KWhr then that will only take 30,000 hrs at full power to pay off the initial investment
The "full power" is the problem here. PV systems do not produce full power except on a few days in a year, when the star and the Earth are aligned just right, and when there is nothing in the air. Even thin clouds will drop the power severely.
How do I know? I have a 6 kW PV system right here, and I have the power meter readings sent all over my LAN. Right now, at 2:26pm, the power
Get Lockheed to do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, do I have to think of everything?
Look you can produce a product, put it on the market, blah blah blah. Fuck that. Do what lockheed does.
1. Open a number of plants within the US, get the politicians to give speeches about how wonderful each plant will be locally. Make sure to choose towns that would be as deastated as possible by any future plant closure.
2. Lobby congress directly to buy the solar panels as a national security issue, and ignoring any irresponsible departments who claim they are not cost effective or they don't need them.
3. If #2 doesn't work right away, threaten to close individual plants, rinse and repeat until congress orders enough to ensure your profits. Be sure to tell your employees that the plant might be closing because of the uncertainty around government orders. Try to get the whole town involved.
4. Once they are buying them, get them to throw a few orders into the foriegn aid bucket. (Isreal needs solar power to keep it safe from Iran!)
5. Profit.
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make sure you open your plant in the middle of no where. no one wants your pollution around their homes
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Blaming the industry??? (Score:4, Interesting)
The low cost provider will ALWAYS make money.
The High quality provider may or may not make money.
The also rans usually get eaten up by the low cost provider.
The fact that your particular company fails in a business is a failure of YOU, not the business. It means you can't compete with the rest of the world.
When Bosch leaves, it lets everyone else raise their prices just a little bit.
Maybe that will be enough to make the rest of the corporations profitable. Or maybe some more 'also rans' may have to quit because THEY are losing money.
But I guarantee you, once enough also rans have left the business, the rest of the people will make money hand over fist.
Good (Score:2)
How long term? (Score:5, Insightful)
Petroleum isn't economically viable over the long term either.
that's ridiculous (Score:2)
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Those "latitudes" are rich in oil and gas, better deal.
Re:Simple physics and the law of diminishing retur (Score:4, Insightful)
If cars need gas, we'll either need to figure out how to create gas from atmospheric CO2 (probably more biodiesel) or give up on cars in not too terribly long. Eh. Electric or hydrogen will work, it will just take time to ramp up.
As for power plants. I can certainly see Nuclear as been a good and viable plan for the future (keep them away from coasts and tectonically active regions), but... What is wrong with also using solar? In areas where there is a lot of sunlight, and low enough latitude, solar is a perfectly viable solution. If it can be almost viable in Germany, there are certainly many parts of Africa, the American Southwest, and Central America that could use it just fine.
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As for power plants. I can certainly see Nuclear as been a good and viable plan for the future (keep them away from coasts and tectonically active regions), but... What is wrong with also using solar?
Solar doesn't have the density or the reliability to even be considered a competitor to nuclear.
Every watt of solar power needs some other type of reliable power generation to back it up. (or the application relying on solar is something that can be easily shut down)
It's not too big a deal if your lights go out. You won't like it if your internet goes out. The factory churning out widgets will NOT accept the power going out because of a cloudy day.
Because solar cannot provide reliable baseline po
Re:Simple physics and the law of diminishing retur (Score:5, Interesting)
electric cars only suck because our battery technology sucks. But there's nothing in the laws of physics that says you can't make batteries that don't suck.
(triple negative... yikes)
Somebody's gonna come up with a new battery that exploits quantum effects and raises energy density by 10x. The world will be theirs.
Hell, just yesterday I saw a Slashdot article about Lockeed Martin coming up with a new nano-material that decreases water desalinization energy requirement by 100x. We're just scratching the surface when it comes to nano-sized materials and quantum effects (which are related to nano stuff cuz they only happen at very small scales)
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The laws of physics are pretty clear on batteries being inferior to fuel in terms of energy density. Those quantum effects you described are already exploited in fuels (chemistry is inherently quantum mechanical).
Water desalination is a very different problem, all together. (***Water desalination is very different problem!***)
Chemical fuels cannot be beat in terms of energy density (outside of nuclear fuels). However, they could feasibly be generated from grid energy and raw material. This is the concept be
Re:Simple physics and the law of diminishing retur (Score:5, Informative)
1945 [wikipedia.org].
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Re:Simple physics and the law of diminishing retur (Score:4, Insightful)
A co-worker of mine has one. It's powered (mainly) by the nuclear plant up the road.
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Or maybe we should look for other alternatives than PV. Of course distributed power generation isn't efficient.
Re:Capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
In a word, yes.
Money is a proxy here for the input/output ratio of resources, energy and labor.
Not making money means consuming more in energy, resources and labor than you get in return. That in itself isn't good for the planet, or us uncultured swines.
What you probably want to whine about is not producing ENOUGH money to satisfy investors. Then we get into opportunity costs, and deeper into economics that I want to bother going in this post.
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This is the stupidity of capitalism in a nutshell: as long as the Q4 before earth ceases supporting human life is "profitable", it's a win-win for everybody!
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Well Bosch is selling out of PV, so if you really think renewables are so essential, get you and your friends together and buy it up at the fire-sale prices!
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Can you replace /build a solar cell with the energy it provides? I'm pretty sure you can't. Thus it's not sustainable and not really helping anybody.
What makes you so sure?
It seems to me that as a first approximation, if a solar cell lasts long enough to recoup its acquisition cost, it has generated at least as much energy as was used in its production. That's because the cost of the energy used in production is rolled into the acquisition cost of the cell.
This is not to say that some PV cells don't manage to recoup the energy used in their production, e.g. PV cells used in spacecraft.
Anyhow ten seconds with Google Scholar produced the following abstrac