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Originally Posted by Hisam135i
solar is a bad idea, most solar companies were subsidized by germany and france and they are no longer subsidizing due to issues in europe....
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I gotta disagree. German/European subsidiaries are not even worth mentioning in terms of US/CAN solar market... you can say they only sprinkled the seed onto the North American solar industry at its infancy stage. The vast majorities of the current solar subsidiaries are from China now, well simply because they can more than afford it. Some of them are coming up with really aggressive financing terms in anticipation of high tariff rates that US could have placed on Chinese-manuf. modules, but now that's no longer a concern anyway, because we're only looking at 3-4%!
The thing is, you don't even need to look into THAT much detail to make a good sense out of solar in NA. Oil & gas prices are hiking; solar manufacturers are dropping their costs and prices faster than ever; federal and state incentives are granting more than 30% of the total installed cost of solar systems in different types of return; AND gov't or utility companies are PAYING you for your renewable energy production that are expected to last 40+ years. In other words, you'll get back ALL of your invested money within 1-3 years from energy cost savings, federal grants, and utility credits, then for the following 20-40 years you'll just live off of the solar panels electric production for free, PLUS you'll make more money from selling all the renewable energy credits. Especially considering Ontario's FIT program, this is almost a no-brainer.
Hisam, I'm really not trying to argue with you, as I was just trying to engage in a intellectual conversation regarding this business, and promote the positive perception of solar investment which has been falsely overshadowed by poor decisions made by gov't on Solyndra, etc. OP, not pressuring you either, just putting the options on the table cuz I've learned a lot about this industry in the past years of my experience. Okay I gotta admit, as "positive," "green" and "sustainable" as solar is, nobody really gives a crap about those things. It's all about the money, the return of investment, the incentives & grants right now. European market has finally gotten to a point where they don't need those for renewable energy any more, but Asian and American markets still do need them and they are as strong as ever. The ship will sail soon, and I think it's definitely worth a look if you're into investing at this time.
Sorry for the long post, I won't thread-jack any further with this corny renewable stuff, and I'm ending my post with notable mentions of Apple's recent $100M investment of solar farm in NC, and Warren Buffett's recent $2 BILLION dollar investment on top-tier American solar companies and power plants.