China's Solar Giants Quietly Shed a Third of Their Workforces Last Year (zerohedge.com)
- Reference: 0178604622
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/08/07/1610201/chinas-solar-giants-quietly-shed-a-third-of-their-workforces-last-year
- Source link: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chinas-solar-industry-quietly-fired-third-its-workers
> China's biggest solar firms [2]shed nearly one-third of their workforces last year , company filings show, as one of the industries hand-picked by Beijing to drive economic growth grapples with falling prices and steep losses. The job cuts illustrate the pain from the vicious price wars being fought across Chinese industries, including solar and electric vehicles, as they grapple with overcapacity and tepid demand. The world produces twice as many solar panels each year as it uses, with most of them manufactured in China.
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> Longi Green Energy, Trina Solar, Jinko Solar, JA Solar, and Tongwei, collectively shed some 87,000 staff, or 31% of their workforces on average last year, according to a Reuters review of employment figures in public filings.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1
[2] https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chinas-solar-industry-quietly-fired-third-its-workers
Re:Chinese Solar is untrustworthy (Score:4, Insightful)
> Solar works great when it's made well but Chinese solar is untrustworthy because it's made to fail suddenly and catastrophically as a means of military attack against other countries that buy it.
[Citation Needed]
Re: (Score:3)
>> Solar works great when it's made well but Chinese solar is untrustworthy because it's made to fail suddenly and catastrophically as a means of military attack against other countries that buy it.
> [Citation Needed]
I believe they are referring to this story: [1]Rogue Communication Devices Found in Chinese Solar Power Inverters [slashdot.org]
[1] https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/05/14/1655244/rogue-communication-devices-found-in-chinese-solar-power-inverters
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about "made to". They'll probably fail, but through shoddy workmanship not malicious intent.
Re: (Score:2)
That’s a pretty far stretch. Maybe 10+ years ago but their tech has improved significantly over the past few years. Your military comment is just weird.
Re: (Score:2)
Alex Jones is that you?
Leaving energy on the table? (Score:2)
> The world produces twice as many solar panels each year as it uses
Once you've built the solar panel, the energy is very close to free.
How could these go unused?
Re: (Score:2)
"Once you've built the solar panel, shipped it, installed it, tested it, and paid any tariffs and other taxes on it, the energy is very close to free , assuming the point-of-use is very close to where the solar panels are installed. ."
There, fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Labour is expensive. If you can DIY though it's cheaper than wood for a fence, it's ridiculously cheap.
Re: (Score:2)
Really expensive. I've 2 neighbors who have looked into it. One was 30 grand (no batteries) they are passing, the 2nd is 50 grand including I think 15KWh of battery. Tax credits get it down to 30. I'm amazed they are going with it. I'm not sure they'll ever get a payback. The batteries would be handy in our every increasing power failures though. In winter, 15KWh will get you some time with gas heat which they have. Summer though 15KWh will get depleted in a few hours between AC, fridge and sundry other ite
Why No Price Decrease? (Score:2)
> The world produces twice as many solar panels each year as it uses
So why are solar prices going up in price, since 2021, and not coming down?
I keep hearing about oversupply, glut, and now this. Yet, prices are rising rather than falling.
While I suppose there's beutiful clean coal /s (Score:2)
China as plenty of it.
Coming next month (Score:2)
Bodies: Sun Worshippers
Kiss cheap shit goodbye (Score:3, Insightful)
The pandemic has made the world nervous about single-country sources. The benefits of Comparative Advantage are being downplayed at the expense of supply resilience.
Not really. (Score:1)
> Kiss cheap shit goodbye
Seems unlikely because of "overcapacity and tepid demand". However, "cheap stuff" is already evaporating as a result of tariffs.
> The benefits of Comparative Advantage are being downplayed at the expense of supply resilience.
Any change in behavior is more likely due to the market turmoil caused by Trump's unpredictable and inexplicable tariff policies. The situation is so volatiles that even MBAs, who can't see past their noses, are nervous.
I fully expect that when the threat passes that MBAs will go full single-point-of-failure again.
Re: (Score:2)
> The pandemic has made the world nervous about single-country sources.
How was the pandemic a cause? I'm thinking that the larger issue is seeing trade threatened through bottlenecks in shipment by sea by piracy, terrorism, and more. If the shipments aren't threatened by overt attacks by missiles or rifle fire on the crew then it could be more subtle such as faked GPS transmissions potentially causing ships to run aground or collide with another vessel. Should there be a successful blockade on one of these choke points then that could make single source commodities much mor