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By Peter Gardett
Managing Editor, AOL Energy
"A global manufacturer has to be willing to look at its product portfolio and participate
There is a place for both large-scale utility projects, several of which Canadian Solar has in its development pipeline, and for small-scale domestic projects or mid-scale distributed generation. The second class of projects offer ideal opportunities for differentiation in company products that otherwise become commoditized – low-voltage solar panels with customized appearances could help Canadian Solar panels stand out from the competition. In addition to a diversity of projects, the company is targeting a geographic diversity of markets, including the African and South American markets identified by a number of industry analysts and boosters as the next major markets for solar. The U.S. and Canada continue to offer opportunities, King said, while in budget-crunch Europe the focus will be maintaining the market. Key to growing the U.S. market has been the participation of Chinese panel manufacturers and their contribution to cost compression. While that has driven a number of firms out of the business, and King warned more would follow, he also argued that the market would be half if its current size today in the U.S. if panel prices had not dropped so dramatically in the past three years. Grid parity with fossil fuels is already being hit in some areas where power is expensive, and solar will continue to emerge as a competitive source of generation as prices continue to slip – albeit more slowly – in 2012 and efficiencies increase. Read more about solar grid parity here. Page 2: Slapping tariffs on Chinese panels won't help the market >>
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