Solar Installation Firms

installing solar panels are changing tastes and preferences of consumer. As Energy Sage (n.d.) stated,

In 2014, Hewlett Packard’s (HP’s) headquarters in Palo Alto, California partnered with SolarCity, a clean renewable energy solar provider, to outfit their headquarters with over 4,000 solar panels (Canales, 2014, para. 1). HP, a 75-year plus veteran of international technologies, understands the importance of creating and investing in sustainable solutions throughout its value chain. HP states: “We set bold targets to lead the IT sector. We are committed to sourcing 50% renewable electricity for our operations by 2025 and reducing operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25% compared to 2015,” (“Living Progress,” 2017, para. 5). This commitment is not limited by HP to their products and services, but extends to, literally, their work environment. A small, but significant step to demonstrating this belief, is their project of installing solar panels over the heads of their top decision makers. “… [The] 1 megawatt system… is expected to offset more than 20 percent of HP’s current power usage onsite… [the] installation is expected to help HP reduce its utility power costs by approximately one million dollars over the next two decades,” (Canales, 2014, para. 1). To a company that earned a net income of 3.1 million in 2016 (“Cash Flow,” 2017) one

These incentives dramatically lower the cost of a solar power system or energy efficiency project. These tax credits and rebates often make solar power less expensive than power from the utility company. We will start from the overview of the U.S economy, the current GDP volume and the contribution by each sector. The inflation rate and the unemployment rate would also have great impact on the growth and the operations of the business in U.S. With crude oil prices

Canadian Solar which is a traded solar cell and module manufacturer has experienced recent strong growth. Despite 2009 fluctuations in the solar industry namely for PV technology, the growth has been fuelled by Government incentives programs to encourage solar PV technology. The Solar industry is now highly competitive and companies follow an industrial organizational model. This is because they all compete mainly in PV technology, and this market is hinged on Government initiatives and renewable support schemes. Also, the international markets such as Spain (FIT) and Germany ( EEG law) influenced the companies ' strategy in terms of rates changes, over supply in 2009 among others.

Recently, the price of unrenewable energy resource such as oil, coral and natural gas is increasing by time because of rare and more and more usage for individual and industries. Solar panels which use energy from Sun are considered as renewable energy through the form of solar radiation, UV. Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they

Chinese companies were ‘selling products below the cost of manufacture also benefiting from unfair subsidies from their government’ this results the domestic quantity supply of solar-panels to decrease as the price of domestic supplied solar-panels is higher than ones imported from China. But U.S consumers are paying a lower price when solar-panels are exported to the U.S from China and consumers get more variety of choices when buying. Even if America’s solar market contained no trade-barriers before this, the domestic quantity supplied would still decrease from Q2 to Q1 because most domestic solar companies cannot compete with the subsidized Chinese producers. ‘Inexpensive Chinese solar-products pushed many American manufacturers out of business’, causing structural-unemployment in America and this will be difficult for the U.S government to deal with because this will require retraining or other initiatives which can sometimes be

The SunPower Company is an up and coming manufacturer and seller of photovoltaic (PV) panels. As a young company with a strong desire for innovation they operate in an atmosphere where competition is very high and SunPower and the competition continue to fight for market shares. For SunPower management team to promote its growth will need to make sound decisions to ensure it stays competitive with the market. As seen in 2008, with other solar companies already dominating the market, increasing sales was an imperative goal to achieve its main objective to maximize profit.

Now onwards in this report, the business environment of this Euro Solar Company is to be discussed from different perspectives i.e. economic environment, political environment, sociocultural environment and technological environment. Critical issues that affect the business of this company and implication of business decision making has also been covered in this article.

Studies have shown that 88% of americans believe in good environmental impact on the earth. However, 52% of the surveyed believe that government subsidization will help protect environmental services such as selling organic food or using solar panels for energy instead of electricity (Franchise Help). Solar energy is being adopted by businesses like Target who operates over ten projects to conserve energy and reduce waste. The solar program of Target has generated over 15- 30% of the power in their stores and plan to have an estimate of five hundred roof top panels by the year 2020 (Target). Although solar energy is expensive and risky, in fact businesses going solar will save money and increase media response.

The competitive pressure in the industry was very fierce. Competition existed between many countries in 2008. Solar PV growth witnessed an increase of 5.6 gigawatts up to 14.73 gigawatts in 2008. Geographically, total installed capacity was split: 65 % in Europe, 15 % in Japan, 8 % in the United States. The strongest market was Spain which counted for half of the installations because of implementing the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff which stands for ( REFT or FIT). This program guaranteed electricity rates for certain renewable projects. In 2008, Spain witnesses a vast rate of growth in its ability to dominate the PV market. The Spanish government implemented the 500MW for its installation for the next couple of years. But Spain was expected to witness a drop in its growth by 2009.

Solar energy: This study was made by (Heikki Keskiväli,2013) Flexible energy management and solar-related business opportunities for households in Finland

Reductions in the cost per peak watt can potentially be made to PV technology by increasing the net flux of solar energy to a given cell area. This can lead to reductions in PV prices independently of advances in PV cell technology126. This application of solar concentration saturates carrier traps inside the material, while raising the thermodynamic efficiency limit. The saturation of traps means charge carries are more efficiently transported, leading to improved overall cell efficiency127. Furthermore, under concentrated illumination, the open circuit voltage is found to increase with the incoming flux and thus the overall power efficiency can be increased128,129. Moreover, under solar concentration, light is focussed onto a smaller

As per a market research report by Transparency Market Research1, the global PV market is expected

Despite the fact that solar energy harvesting has been possible for decades, its use did not increase in the way it was expected. One of the main reasons behind the slow growth of solar energy harvesting is the economy surrounding it. The cost of photovoltaic cells has decreased significantly over the years, mainly due to improvements for mass production purposes, yet it has not proven to be affordable. In comparison with hydrocarbon energy, solar energy’s cost is still high. Regardless its high cost, the solar industry produces positive economic impacts. Opposing to the decrement in job vacancies in the coal industry, solar industry increases job positions yearly. In

The Indian solar PV market has seen significant growth with the installed solar PV capacity, rising from 40 MW to more than 3,000 MW in the last four years. It is also expected that the distributed generation (rooftop Solar PV) at the consumer end will drive solar power capacity additions given the acute power shortages in several states.