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