Italian Cloud Casts Shadow on Solar Sector, Pressures Beijing 意大利阴云笼罩中国太阳能产业

By newsdoug on May 12, 2011

Italian cloud over solar First Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL) warned earlier this week that its Q1 earnings would miss its own guidance, and a day later Yingli (NYSE: YGE) issued a similar warning. (Trina announcement; Yingli announcement) So what’s going on here? It seems the problem lies in Italy, where a bit of regulatory indecision has finally been resolved, reducing the size of the country’s solar-installation incentives. It’s probably only a matter of days before other big solar producers reliant on Italy follow with similar announcements, or they may just wait until reporting time to give investors the bad news. The Italy effect will ripple through the market for at least the next few months, pressuring prices through the fourth quarter. Of course that’s good news for anyone building solar plants, but I expect that analysts are busy revising downward all their earnings forecasts for the big Chinese solar firms for the rest of the year. All this highlights how reliant this sector is on government incentives and underscores the pressure on Beijing to roll out more of its own incentives to make sure this vibrant field of domestic manufacturers stays healthy. (previous post)

Bottom line: China’s solar cell makers and their suppliers will take a revenue hit in the next two quarters, pressuring Beijing to announce new incentives to prop up the industry.

天合光能<TSL.N>本周早些时候发出警告称，其第一季盈利将达不到公司预期目标。一天之後，英利绿色能源<YGE.N>也发布了类似警告。那麽到底发生了什麽事呢？问题似乎出在意大利方面，因该国终於解决了监管方面的优柔寡断问题，减少了对本国太阳能设施安装的激励措施。大概在未来几天内，其他依赖意大利市场的大型太阳能企业也会相继发布类似警告。意大利效应至少会在未来数月干扰市场，对价格形成的压力也会绵延到第四季度。当然，这对那些建造太阳能电厂的人来说是个好消息，但我预计，分析师们正忙于下调对中国大型太阳能企业今年余下时间的盈利预测。所有这些都说明这个产业是多么依赖政府的支持和激励，也突显了中国政府面临的压力：即要推出更多国内刺激政策，以确保正在蓬勃发展的中国太阳能企业安然无恙。

一句话：在未来两个季度，中国太阳能电池制造商及其供应商的营收将受创，从而可能迫使中国政府出台新的激励措施，以支持该行业发展。