China Solar Dominance Based On State-Backed Loans

Why China Is Crushing the U.S. in Solar Energy; China is putting its weight behind building a large solar industry, something the U.S. hasn't done in any material way.

Travis Hoium, September 17, 2017 (Motley Fool)

“…[China had] 78 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity by the end of 2016…[and] may exit this year with around 123 GW…The U.S. ended 2016 with 40 GW of solar installed and is expected to…[have] around 52 GW by year-end….China and Chinese companies are by far the biggest solar manufacturers in the world. Canadian Solar (NASDAQ:CSIQ), JinkoSolar (NYSE:JKS), JA Solar (NASDAQ:JASO), and Hanwha Q-Cells (NASDAQ:HQCL) are among the largest solar module suppliers in the world…[A]ll have over $600 million of short-term debt and notes payable. They've literally funded billions of dollars in manufacturing expansion with short-term debt…Solar power plant construction is driven by developers knowing where they're going to sell energy from the plant long-term and how much they'll be paid…An underappreciated factor driving China's solar boom is the growth in China itself. China's electricity demand jumped 5%, or about 281 terawatt-hours (TWh), in 2016 (enough to power 25 million U.S. homes). Since 2007, U.S. electricity consumption is down 78 TWh per year…” click here for more

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