SunbitsSass Peress – CEO of ICP Solar – Solar Blog

The world is now going to see the biggest electronics makers go solar. and that is ONLY a good thing for the solar industry, for the environment and for jobs in renewable energy companies.
I know for me, its not just a challenge but an opportunity to step up and deliver innovative products which will satisfy clients better than the rest in this new portable world that we live in. Stay tuned…its getting more and more interesting…
Sass

I see many new announcements of signed up deals. Not like in 2008, but more reasonable sized announcements that have a greater hope of fruition than many of the “pie in the sky” announcements we saw on an almost weekly basis last year. This is the sign of an industry which is maturing, that realizes that it is subject to the macro-economic realities just like any other industry and that it must govern and manage itself using the same principles of other industries.
Solar is an industry that goes up and down like any other. The differentiator is that it is an industry whose future is assured, simply not in the structure which it currently has. There will be continued announcements of closures (one company which we were going to purchase is in re-organization) and acquisitions, yet there will come a point where the scale of the big ones will mean that the only other models which work are not those based on economics of scale manufacturing capacity, rather on flexibility and intellectual asset values.
This is an exciting time in solar. Many new technologies are coming out, many are maturing. Each will find their place in the chase of clean energy and all make our world a better place for our children. After all…isn’t that what its really about?
Sass

BP has decided to stop making solar panels and simply “brand” and “innovate”.
I think that either you are a player with significant capital assets and research capacities, or you are a player with research capacities, or you are a me too player, in which you become a solar (or sun) farce rather than a force in this industry moving forward.
BP figured out it could not go head to head with the people building gigawatt plants or investing far more than what they want to in the game. They were too far behind and so now will simply make it a marketing exercise. Their brand is very powerful, they have good marketing people, and I think they will be very successful.
The people at the low end are being squeezed out as consumers demand innovation and quality. The
“me too” players who have not one iota of innovation are becoming the dinosaurs of our industry. The farce that they represented is almost dead. They have nowhere to go but to oblivion. BP chose to avoid that route by changing their strategy. Kudos to them. The challenge is, unless you are willing to invest, you will die. So either invest in capital assets or intellectual ones…that is the ultimate choice facing the solar industry players who wish to survive.
Sass