Solar analyst sees supply, other challenges

Hapoalim Securities analyst Gordon Johnson, who accurately predicted a fall in solar stocks last year, said solar companies face excess supply and other challenges through 2010, according to Barron’s on Sunday.

The photovoltaic sector will see a supply of 7.1 gigawatts this year and about 10.8 GW the next, compared with demand of roughly 4.3 GW this year and some 6 GW in 2010, Johnson told the weekly business newspaper.
Manufacturers of crystalline polysilicon, which is used in some solar cells, could also face lower demand, even as plants that take three years to build come online, Johnson told Barron’s in an interview.

Johnson told the paper that polysilicon prices, now $50 per kilogram to $60 per kilogram, are likely to fall and might dip below the break-even level — $25 per kg to $28 per kg — which is bad news for producers like MEMC Electronic Materials and Wacker Chemie.

Johnson has a price target of $9 on MEMC. It closed at $17.29 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Johnson told Barron’s that solar companies have seen their stocks rise of late on expectations of demand from China this year and the next, but those hopes were overblown.

Reuters