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BP Solar closes Maryland plant due to market competition
Author: Rich Hessler Solar
Though BP Solar is a big name in the renewable energy industry and maintains steady investment in wind energy technology, its efforts in solar development have endured a significant blow.
On March 26th, 2010, BP Solar announced that it would be ceasing operations at their Frederick, Maryland manufacturing facility. BP Solar opened the facility just three and a half years ago. With lower cost solar materials and equipment being imported from China and even India, BP Solar simply determined the move to be the most financially practical.
Out of 430 employees at the Frederick plant, 320 were laid off. Production involved with silicon casting, wafering, and cell manufacturing was ceased and all workers associated with these departments lost their jobs. BP Solar plans to shift all the remaining in-house manufacturing to other low-cost joint ventures to ultimately become more affordable to their market. Sales and marketing, research and technology, project development and other business support functions will remain.
Reyad Fezzani, CEO of BP Solar, stated "Solar prices declined between 40 and 50 percent since the onset of the financial and economic crisis, compressing industry margins and driving solar power towards grid competitive pricing. By shifting our supply to a high quality, low cost supply base to serve both distribution customers and large scale projects, we have strengthened our position as a provider of competitive solar solutions with our offer of the highest lifetime value."
Beginning in the first quarter of 2009, BP Solar also closed several other high-cost manufacturing locations and consequentially reducing their prices by 45%. Most solar companies have found themselves drastically lowering their inventory values due to strong international competition and depressed silicon prices.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/business-opportunities-articles/bp-solar-closes-maryland-plant-due-to-market-competition-2287735.html
About the Author
Rich Hessler Solar - An organization that provides the elements necessary to launch or increase sales and revenue for solar businesses. We offer the latest innovative solar products, solar financing, leads, solar marketing, and business support; all the key components to starting a solar company.
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apologies for not reading your post in full, but 3 companies make 1000.00 per second profit, what exactly does that mean, these are global companies which deal in huge figures. 333.00 GBP per second per company is hardly massive considering that fact – i mean how much money gets traded on teh stock market per day – billions
it is not as if one person is pocketing 333.00 per second and i presume the green party supports high taxes on fuel (oh think about the dreadful carbon footprint) considering a vast percentage of money the consumer pays on fuel is tax – who exactly is the robber – and i dont think the green party would do a u-turn on this
you cannot take the greens seriously as they are a one policy party, and they dont seem to give a damn that the policies that they are spelling out are potentially ruinous to teh economy
at least that is what i think
Oil companies produce oil. Why would they change businesses? They have been successful at the one their in.
no you will still get conservative knuckleheads who chant that we need the oil…we need the oil…..they aren’t interested in renewable energy.
renewable energy = less capitalist profit than something you need…need….need
Hey, I’m all for Nuclear energy Grid like France.
White House is putting pressure on BP because voters are putting pressure on it (the spill is already being called Obama’s Katrina).
Shale gas can replace oil for most uses, and there is plenty of it.
But otherwise you are right, politicians (of any persuasion) tend to be out of touch with reality.
Greens leader slams ‘robber barons’ @ £1,000 profit a sec BP, Centrica and Shell: demands a “Green New Deal”?
Press Assoc. – 1 hour 27 minutes ago
Bosses of energy companies have been branded “robber barons” by the new leader of the Greens as she addressed the party’s annual conference a day after her election.
Caroline Lucas was chosen as the first ever leader of the Green Party of England and Wales in a vote of party members, after a referendum last year scrapped their previous system of two principal speakers – one male and one female.
She used her first speech as leader to call for a windfall tax on energy companies and demand a “Green New Deal” of massive investment in renewable technology and energy efficiency.
Ms Lucas told the conference in London: “Just three companies – BP, Centrica and Shell – together made £1,000 profit every second over the first six months of this year.
“These corporations are robbing from the poor to give to the rich and they know it. And it’s about time they learned that, in a progressive democracy, there is no place for robber barons.”
She called for a Green New Deal to deliver public investment in “green-collar” jobs in areas including renewable energy, which she said could create hundreds of thousands of jobs while helping the fight against global warming and cutting fuel bills.
And she gave her backing to a programme of free insulation to every home in Britain.
“When the world faced economic depression back in the early 1930s, it was (US) President (Franklin) Roosevelt’s New Deal that got people back to work with a massive investment in infrastructure,” said Ms Lucas.
“Today we stand on the brink of a triple crisis – a combination of a credit-fuelled financial meltdown, accelerating climate change, and soaring energy prices. We need a Green New Deal in response.
“The core would be a 21st century project to make the nation’s buildings truly energy-efficient, with local authority bonds being issued to raise the necessary funds for a major investment in insulation, efficiency and renewables, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process.”
MEP for South East England since 1999, Ms Lucas is the party’s candidate for its target constituency of Brighton Pavilion in the General Election expected in 2010.
She seems a formidable reform campaigner, not unlike Sarah Palin?
Are her figures, analysis & recommendations right ??
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20080906/tuk-greens-leader-slams-robber-barons-6323e80.html
Wanna ask BBC ‘Have your say’ for a proper global debate @ ‘Green New deal’?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2804227.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7601832.stm – inc 2.57 video link of her talk
Greens coming of age, says Lucas
New leader says the Green Party’s ‘moment has come’
New Green leader Caroline Lucas has said the party was “coming of age” and expected to secure its first MPs.
Ms Lucas, unveiled as the party’s first leader at its annual conference, has also said she plans to draw attention to the party’s social justice policies.
In her speech to the London conference she called for a windfall tax on energy companies and a “Green new deal” of investment in energy efficiency.
Ms Lucas branded bosses of energy companies energy “robber barons”.
She told the conference: “Just three companies – BP, Centrica and Shell – together made £1,000 profit every second over the first six months of this year.
“These corporations are robbing from the poor to give to the rich and they know it. And it’s about time they learned that, in a progressive democracy, there is no place for robber barons.”
It follows her criticism of Gordon Brown for failing to >>
It follows her criticism of Gordon Brown for failing to impose a windfall tax on the energy companies.
Green spin doctors (yes they really do exist) insist there is no question of the party abandoning its principles
Carole Walker
BBC political correspondent
Greens push for the mainstream
The party leader also used her speech to call for a Green New Deal to deliver public investment in “green-collar” jobs in areas including renewable energy, which she said could create hundreds of thousands of jobs while helping the fight against global warming and cutting fuel bills.
And Ms Lucas gave her backing to a programme of free insulation to every home in the UK.
The party leader told the BBC she expected to see Green MPs at Westminster in the next two years.
She identified Brighton Pavilion, Lewisham and Norwich South as target seats.
Ms Lucas told the BBC success in local elections, combined with the change to the party hierarchy, meant the Green party >>
positioned for success at the next general election.
“I’m confident this is all part of a real coming of age for the Green party and we will be seeing Green MPs at Westminster next time round,” she said.
‘Abstract ideas’
The MEP for South East England – the party’s candidate for Brighton Pavilion – beat the only other candidate, Ashley Gunstock, by 2,559 votes to 210 in the leadership vote.
Earlier, Ms Lucas, 47, told the BBC: “We need to redouble our efforts to get our message across even more urgently. We think that by having a leader we can do that even better.”
She added the decision to switch from the party’s previous system of having two principal speakers followed “the realisation that people don’t respond to abstract ideas”.
“They respond much more to the people and policies that represent those ideas. We have a face to put to the policies,” said the new leader.
Ms Lucas added: “There is a huge number of people out there who want to hear our message
Good case for a Wooden Spoon Award there, James!
Best reply could well go to you if you can edit in any links to support what you say
Or to anyone else who can echo La Machine >> >>
Think I’ll change my name to Spidey & conquer da Web
LOL
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AmqtmOs8iDUgQmS8ZeF_s8MgBgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20080906123626AA7Xu8Z
Maybe the Greens are counting da metal footprints there?
LOL
Good point there, Caggy!
Party Conferences should be good for a few laffs, y’all!
When will oil companies decide to switch over to renewable energy?
Will it be before they suck up all the world’s oil resources or after? and can governments put more pressure on oil giants such as BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell etc to speed up the transition.
Why does the Drill Baby Drill crowd want so badly for oil companies to make profits from offshore drilling?
when none of them will ever see a penny of the profits?
They don’t own Exxon or BP. Most of them do not own a gas station.
So why do they go all moist about Exxon and BP making a killing, literally, in offshore drilling when we could be concentrating on renewable energy?
Does Exxon tip them on the side?
Is BP Oil Leak in a way a blessing?
I believe this incident will cause a pivotal shift towards renewable energy. If BP considers using nuclear bombs to stop the leak, then that would also cause the end to nuclear power production too.
Hello, lets say we found another Earth. Even if we did, we do not have the technology to get there.
So we are only stuck with one home. We need to be taking care of it instead of destroying it.
Democrats, are you aware that Oil is vital to the world’s economy?
That as to date we have no large scale replacement of oil what-so-ever. That without oil in-addition to not being able to drive your car, you have no food, no water, no clothes, no electric (oil fuels the electric making generators) The few exceptions would be the Amish Farmers. Renewable energy as of yet a pipe dream.
That the White House rant against BP will only not solve the problem but is making it worse, that all our efforts should go into stopping the spill. Aka Bobby Jindal Governor of Louisiana
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