Back To Petroleum! – BP Shuts Down Solar Business – “Also In Germany Solar Industry Faces Collapse”

Energy giant British Petroleum (BP) announced that it was shutting down its solar module business for good. In 2000 the corporation had announced that it would expand aggressively into promising renewable energies, and dubbed itself “Beyond Petroleum”.Today, according to the online leftist “TAZ” daily here:

Already last year the company shut down its own solar modules plants, and now also its business with project development is ended – 30 years after BP Solar was founded.

BP is the latest in the long string of failures that have swept over the solar industry recently. Massive subsidies by governments had caused a boom in solar installations, but with solar electricity costs still sky high, governments have recently cut back subsidies dramatically, thus making investment in solar modules less attractive. Massive competition from low-cost countries in Asia, including China, have led to plummeting prices and over capacity in solar module supply. The TAZ writes:

Annual production capacity is about 50 gigawatts, but the global demand this year is only about 21 gigawatts.”

This is certainly not good news for all the German solar plants that opened with much fanfare just few years ago, especially in East Germany – many with government support. These solar module plants were ballyhooed as high tech job machines and rescuers of the climate. Today you have to feel awfully sorry for the poor workers – duped again by bogus future scenarios and false promises.

Of course the German solar cell manufacturers are crying about “unfair trade practices” by Asian producers. You see, it’s not enough that their customers are opulently subsidized in the purchase of their solar modules, German manufacturers also want trade protection as well. Then the solar energy playing field would be level!

“It all comes down to reestablishing fair competition,” said Solarworld CEO Frank Asbeck. The TAZ also writes how things don’t look sunny for the German solar industry:

The solar industry in Germany faces a collapse. […] The Sarasin Bank puts companies Conergy, Q-Cells, Solar-Fabrik, and Sunways under the category of ‘endangered’.”

In summary, the very people who warned us of catastrophic global warming, climate change, global weirding, extreme weather events, also told us that solar energy was the future – the job machine! Indeed, just when everything solar is collapsing around them, many politicians are still cluelessly running around a preaching us the virtues of solar energy.

Don’t waste your breath telling these pols that global temperatures haven’t risen in over a decade.

Also also read more here at Bloomberg (The rest of the MSM is ignoring this embarrassment).

NEWS: German manufacturer Solar Millenium announces it is insolvent –Read at Der Spiegel!

11 responses to “Back To Petroleum! – BP Shuts Down Solar Business – “Also In Germany Solar Industry Faces Collapse””

  1. DirkH

    Just in time for Solar Millenium’s collapse – these were the guys who wanted to build solar thermal plants in North Africa and California.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/21/us-solarmillennium-insolvency-idUSTRE7BK11920111221

  2. mwhite

    “Solar tariff cut plan ruled legally flawed”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16291768

    “Government plans to cut subsidies for solar panels on homes have been ruled legally flawed by the High Court.”

  3. biggreenlie

    I would suggest the “Warming Industry” is spiraling out of control and has become “desperate”. Now they are attacking Bloggers who’s only intent is to bring a semblance of truth in an otherwise untruthful World. Hopefully this is the last gasp from these Green Gangs!
    http://thebiggreenlie.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/read-alert-green-gestapo-targeting-denier-bloggers/

    1. DirkH

      They obviously want to find FOIA before he releases the password. There must be something pretty interesting in there, or at least, they think so.

  4. DirkH

    Climate falling off the cliff RSN.
    http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/images/sunspot-lenght-temp-trend.gif
    Maybe.
    h/t crosspatch

  5. John F. Hultquist

    “Energy giant British Petroleum (BP) . . .”

    I don’t know what this company is called in Germany but to the rest of the world it is officially named BP p.l.c. and uses the tag “Beyond Petroleum.”

    Maybe they will change back!

  6. Joseph A Olson, PE

    Every form of ‘green energy’ is a fraud. Windmills, bio-fuels and solar cells are all NET energy losers. Without Carbon based production energy NONE of these ‘green technologies’ could produce the energy required for it’s own production. Solar cells in particular are nothing more than a parlor trick. A Silicone crystral matrix is embedded with Boron atoms that have one ‘excess’ electron each. When excited by photons of light energy, the Boron atoms release ONE electron in a one time, one way molecular erosion process. The energy released is far less than the energy to mine, refine and install solar ‘free energy’ cells. This is fully described in “The Green Prince of Darkness” atricle at Faux Science Slayer website. All green energy can rightfully be described as ‘make-work for morons’ and MUST be excluded in any thoughtful future for humanity.

  7. Réchauffement médiatique » Blog Archive » BP se retire de l’énergie solaire

    […] liste des compagnies en difficulté dans le secteur semble s’allonger chaque semaine. En Allemagne, Conergy, Q-Cells, Solar-Fabrik et Sunways sont aujourd’hui considérées comme étant en […]

  8. DirkH

    Church Of England pissed. Says robbing the poor to pay rich solar owners (like itself) is the moral thing to do.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16304817

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