User:David Liu
Contents
About Me
My name is David Liu. I am a freshman of School of Engineering, Duke Unverisityfrom China.
Name Pronumciation
Just call me David if my Chinese name is too difficult to pronunce. But if you fancy a try. My family name is Liu /lü/ and it goes up.
Challenges for Engineering Articles
- Manufacturing: Not So Sunny Kate Galbraith, New York Times,created 14 January 2009, accessed 19 January 2009
Solar Manufacturing: Not So Sunny By KATE GALBRAITH
Solar manufacturers, who once couldn’t keep up with demand, are now searching for customers. (Photo: David Maxwell for The New York Times)
The recession has cast clouds over once fast-growing solar manufacturers. OptiSolar, based in California, is laying off close to half of its workers at what it had hoped would become a huge solar-panel plant near Sacramento. HelioVolt, a thin-film solar manufacturer headquartered in Austin, is also cutting jobs, as reportedly is SunEdison. Evergreen Solar, a solar manufacturer, announced that it would close down a pilot plant in Massachusetts as a cash-saving measure; it will incur a $25 million charge for writing off equipment. Most employees will be transferred to another Massachusetts factory, which is expanding. “From the manufacturers’ standpoint, it’s pretty serious,” said Bill Stewart, president of SolarCraft, a California installer, in a conversation with Green Inc. Until last summer, there were still shortages of solar modules (which in turn were due to shortages of the polysilicon material they are made from), so installers like SolarCraft sometimes had to badger manufacturers to make sure they would receive enough panels. Now, said Mr. Stewart, the situation is reversed, and manufacturers are calling installers to say, “‘Hey, do you need any product this month? Can I sell you a bit more?’” Mr. Stewart said that European solar markets have also slowed, which has helped loosen up supply. SolarCraft, he says, still has “a lot of buyers right now,” but the number would be even higher if there were more innovative loan programs. “A lot of people don’t want to mess with their home-equity lines of credit,” he said. USA Today reports that the price of rooftop solar systems is down by 8 to 10 percent since October, and could fall further.
