Tag: WMT

by Paula Mints In August, CdTe manufacturer First Solar (FSLR) sold its North America O&M business to NovaSource Power. According to First Solar CEO Mark Widmar, the decision was due to contracting O&M margins and customer demands for more services. The company is also exploring jettisoning its EPC business. First Solar plans to focus on its module manufacturing business. Comment: Apparently, First Solar finally realized that O&M is low margin and that the EPC business may also not have much margin cushion. Now the company can concentrate on another low margin sector of the solar manufacturing chain, manufacturing. First Solar has occasionally...

by Paula Mints Walmart takes on Tesla Solar for Poor Quality Installations and Components Early in August, after several quarters of slowing sales, Tesla (TSLA) announced a restart of its residential solar lease, referring to it as solar system rentals. Around the same timeframe, Tesla stated that it had no timeline for the availability of its solar tiles. On August 20, Walmart (WMT) filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Tesla/SolarCity in the commercial division of the New York State Supreme court claiming “years of gross neglect” leading to several fires at its facilities. According to court documents, one fire took place after...