INTRODUCTORY SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY ... - PHOTON Info

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Politics »There was a lot of hoopla, and a lot of an- nouncements were made, but then there was a long period of silence and nothing happening,« said John Baumstark, CEO of Atlanta, Georgia-based solar cell manufac- turer Suniva in September. »The MTC [Ad- vanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit] was passed very early in the administration, and the rules for applying just came out within the last 30 days.« 44 Although an overall supporter of the stimulus package and its impact on PV, Baumstark’s criticism isn’t limited to speed; it’s also about content, particularly the fact that the MTC is a 30 percent tax credit rather than a cash grant. »If it’s a cash grant it would be tangible, and it would hopefully be immediate,« he says. »If you spent $100 million on a factory and you could count on $30 million in cash coming back quickly, you could put that to work to create more jobs and further investments in R&D. If it’s a tax credit, and you’ve built a $100 million factory, the first thing you have to do is have a $30 million tax liability.« Baumstark is also critical of the argument that big government programs take time to set up properly and execute correctly; an argument the administration has made by saying that its efforts are designed to build the infrastructure behind a 20-year energy plan. He cites the efforts the Chinese have made re- cently to provide land and funding for its PV manufacturers, an aggressive ap- proach he says the US needs to emulate if it’s to take advantage of the opportu- nity for US manufacturers to serve the domestic market. »It’s not just the Chi- nese, it’s other people targeting the US, and it’s taking a while to get policy in place to support US manufacturing, US job creation and US leadership in solar,« says Baumstark. It’s like »moving the Titanic,« he says, »but we have to find some ways to move quickly here.« Some argue that political calculations have sapped some of the possible effec- tiveness of the stimulus when it comes to PV. In August, Congress passed, and President Obama signed, an extension of the Cash for Clunkers program, an ini- State assistance: each state is using federal stimulus money in different ways. Some are creating or improving solar incentive programs. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, shown here, is using stimulus funds to install PV on state owned property tiative popular among auto dealers and car buyers. The program gave consum- ers a $3,500 to $4,500 rebate for trading in their low fuel efficiency vehicles to buy higher fuel efficiency cars. The $2 billion for the Cash for Clunkers extension came straight from the DOE’s loan guarantee program, which means only $750 million remains for commercial projects, not all of which will go to PV. »The loan guarantee program as it stands today is not going to have any meaning- ful impact,« says Vishal Shah, an ana- lyst with Barclays Capital, who doesn’t believe promises from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others that the funding will be replenished, eventually. Moving faster Shah is not prepared to say that the stimulus funding has been a failure, but he does say that it’s clear that it has not lived up to expectations. »I think the impact, when we were initially talking about providing stimulus, was expect- ed to be a lot higher,« says Shah. After the Cash for Clunkers announcement, Shah reduced his projection for total installed PV in the US in 2010 from 1.05 GW to 750 MW, although he said that reduction in funding wasn’t the only reason for the downgrade. ıı The argument can be made, obvious- ly, that when expectations are too high, people are bound to be disappointed – case in point is some of the disap- pointment already being expressed by liberal Democrats regarding the Obama administration’s progress as a whole. Certainly, the pace of the stimulus has picked up, and with the process of awarding stimulus money clearly ac- celerating, Obama officials are out pro- moting their progress in earnest. At the Renewable Energy Finance Fo- rum-West in San Francisco in late Sep- tember, Matt Rogers, the DOE’s point man for stimulus spending, said that the department has already handed out $17 billion in stimulus dollars, and ex- pected that number to rise to $30 billion by the end of the year. Expect »a very ex- citing fall,« Rogers told the audience. Greg Shepperd, chief research officer with California-based iSuppli Corpora- tion, agrees that the stimulus’ impact will be felt far into the the future. Shepperd sees the US market going from 500 MW in 2009 to 1 GW in 2010. »We wouldn’t be seeing the doubling of the market without the incentives,« he says. »I think it has had a positive effect, particularly counteract- ing the horrible economic environment the economy has fallen into.« Chris Warren November 2009 Associated Press GmbH
November 2009 45
Page 1: A LONG, STRANGE TRIP SOUTHERN EXPOS
Page 4 and 5: 4 Under the Sun National Renewable
Page 6 and 7: 6 Photo of the month The garden of
Page 8 and 9: May we introduce ourselves? The PHO
Page 10 and 11: 10 Readers‘ letters PHOTON, welco
Page 12 and 13: 12 Readers‘ letters So why are so
Page 14 and 15: 14 Under the Sun History A long, No
Page 16 and 17: 16 Under the Sun The headquarters o
Page 18 and 19: Under the Sun selling book, »A Gui
Page 20 and 21: Under the Sun Academy of Sciences,
Page 22 and 23: Under the Sun made to uniquely fit
Page 24 and 25: Under the Sun to figure out how to
Page 26 and 27: Under the Sun heaters and books to
Page 28 and 29: 28 The 13 Solar Colonies PHOTON inv
Page 30 and 31: Politics to federal income tax. Als
Page 32 and 33: State 32 Politics invest. If histor
Page 34 and 35: 34 Politics San Francisco From mega
Page 36 and 37: 36 Politics (see table below). Acco
Page 38 and 39: Politics cent of permits are over-t
Page 40 and 41: 40 Politics Stimulus package Feel t
Page 42 and 43: 42 Politics guide companies interes
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Page 68 and 69: Little product, big comeback An old
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Page 82 and 83: 82 Architecture November 2009
Page 84 and 85: 84 In Practice Proposals The perfec
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Elkus’ golden trout pond is the l
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Test Laboratory A couple of years a
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Events From system inspection to in
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November 19-20, 2009 Alternative En
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Who should exhibit? • Manufacture
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Education & Training Producer-indep
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Internships New internships in the
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Ask the Editors Whether it’s abou
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Industry Registry Here is informati
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Preview The issue 12-2009 appears a
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