Business & Tech

Solar Execs Say Industry Is Healthy Despite Solyndra's Problems

Fremont-based Solyndra filed for bankruptcy and shut down its operations on Aug. 31.

By Bay City News

Bay Area solar companies' executives said today that the shouldn't tarnish their industry.

David Hochschild, a vice president at Solaria Corp., which is also based in Fremont, said, "Trends in the industry are more important than events at one company" and said job growth in the solar industry is ten times faster than in the rest of the nation's economy.

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Steven Maviglio of Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs, which organized a conference call with solar executives, said, "Not only is the industry alive and well, it is flourishing."

Arno Harris, the chief executive of San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy, a solar project developer which provides clean electricity to utilities and large energy buyers, said, "We're the poster child for growth."

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Harris said his company currently has $8 billion worth of projects under way and is finalizing another $2 billion worth of projects.

He said "solar power is more affordable every day" and the solar industry "is a real player in the U.S. energy economy. Its contributions in generating energy and jobs is real."

David Kennedy, the president of Oakland-based Sungevity Solar Home Specialists, criticized what he described as "the crazy knee-jerk reaction by some powers that be" to reduce subsidies for solar companies in the wake of Solyndra going bankrupt despite getting a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government and a high-profile visit from President Obama last year.

Harris admitted that the solar industry receives a lot of subsidies, but he said, "All energy is subsidized." Harris said the solar industry should continue to receive subsidies "to lower the playing field against heavily-subsidized fossil fuel companies."

Hochschild said, "It would be a mistake to end the limited tools we have" for the government to support solar companies.

Jeremy Carl, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who focuses on energy and environmental policy, including global fossil fuel markets, agreed that subsidies to oil companies in the form of oil depletion allowances and oil production credits are larger cumulatively than are subsidies for solar companies.

But he said oil companies are more efficient in generating energy, so its subsidies per kilowatt hour generated are much lower than subsidies for solar companies.

Carl said the negative news surrounding Solyndra, including an FBI raid and the refusal of its top executives to testify to a congressional committee investigating the company, means "it will be a lot tougher" for solar companies to get money from the government.

He said, "Solyndra is a symptom of mixing a stimulus policy with a jobs policy and an energy policy."

Carl said, "There is tremendous growth nationally and locally in the solar industry." But he warned, "We may see other Solyndras" in the form of other solar companies that also run into financial problems.


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