The company Evergreen Solar declared bankruptcy recently. Why does this blog care? Mainly because the Massachusetts state government gave the company some large incentives to manufacture solar wafers in the state and the company ended up closing the American plants and moving production to China. And going bankrupt.
Interestingly, I heard the news while watching CNBC and the anchor commented that it's too bad the state couldn't find a way to force the use of American made components for solar, like the recent Buy American stimulus packages. Seems like something odd to say for a CNBC anchor to say, but there you go.
Of course Dalton McGuinty has tried to get a solar industry going in Ontario by tying ridiculous feed-in tariff rates for solar (over 80 cents a kwH for small installations) to having a certain percentage of made in Ontario components. Unsurprisingly, various foreign governments are now suing under unfair trade rules. I have to think the Ontario government knew this would happen or at least received advice that it was a strong possibility. But what is probably more annoying is the fact that McGuinty thought that he could create a solar industry here in Ontario by government fiat. It doesn't take a genius to see that countries like China are going to be able to manufacture solar panels for far cheaper than Ontario. So Ontario is trying to prop up it's local industry, which can only compete in Ontario with massive incentives and will wither and die when they end.
People like the concept of green energy and have a weird fixation that it will produce a lot of jobs locally. Unfortunately for Ontario and it's hydro rate payers, the panels are going to be made in low wage companies, no matter how much McGuinty gives away your money.
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