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Could you give more details about the price fixing cartel? Who is in it? What is the effect of this cartel likely to be on prices /progress? Will it be elaff

• kragen 6y ago
  At least GCL System Integration Technology Co., apparently, and presumably most or all of the Chinese PV manufacturing industry, which is most of the world's: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-solar-gcl-idUSKCN1PI2OQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-solar-gcl-i... HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19002696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19002696 Like the DRAM cartel in the mid-1990s, it will probably hold prices constant for a while (the price freeze has lasted a year and a half already) before they start falling again. In the DRAM case they fell to the previous trend line, but in this case they might not; reducing panel costs much further would make them cheaper per square meter than things like window glass. Crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels have a minimum raw-materials cost per watt governed by terrestrial insolation and the mechanical fragility of silicon; this is different from the situation with DRAM where bits in RAM can be made arbitrarily small. The US is currently imposing punitive tariffs on solar panel imports because the zombie bankrupt US solar panel manufacturer Suniva filed a lawsuit saying prices were too low — and won! So, whatever is going to happen with solar energy, the US will not be a participant for a few years, and maybe not ever. The EU certainly could make important moves, if they were to fund a venture to spin up PV production at prices that undercut China's, and certainly they are big PV buyers.