“Suntech is not bankrupt. To declare bankruptcy was Wuxi Suntech Power Ltd, a subsidiary of Suntech Holdings”.
These the words used by Sergio Morony, country manager of Italy for Suntech, to amend the wrong news published by the New York Times this last May. Quoted by Pvcompare.net, the news published by the New York Times wrongly declared the bankruptcy of the company. Except for Wuxi Suntech Power though “the other factories of the Suntech group are in top shape”
To clear all doubts on the matter comes one breaking news: Suntech – currently listed on the NSYE – is building a 30 mw plant in the state of Baja California, Mexico. The plant is meant to be the biggest in the South American area. “Despite all the difficulties present on the current market situation and the general overcapacity state of things, Suntech will continue to create top notch products” reassured Moroni.
Suntech's country manager also commented upon the quality debate (cf. www.pvcompare.net/Allarmequalita-i- pannelli-difettosi-preoccupano-l-industria ) “in 2009 we started witnessing the insertion of factories with very low quality standards. These companies had an easy game in finding customers willing, for a set of different reasons, to install such products.
From Mr. Moroni's point of view this situation is just the tip of the iceberg: “It is a problem that, sooner or later, both markets and companies will have to deal with. When that happens it is going to be clear that who made the best investment, by spending a little more for top notch watts, will have gained not only in terms of plant production but will also have prevented damages of possible great magnitude”
As Moroni said, Suntech's quality standards “have always been the highest and we will continue to keep them that way”. Proving Mr. Moroni's statement are the company's numbers: more than 7 GW and 25 million modules installed in more than 80 countries since 2001. Suntech holds the leadership in terms of numbers of installed panels worldwide and it is considered a high quality partner in the technology field and A manufacturer of reliable and efficient products.
“ The plants” Moroni continued “have always been installed in extreme weather conditions, from African and American deserts as the Masdar Project in Abu Dhabi and the Sempre Project in Arizona, to Canada's glaciers”.
The creation of Designed for Real Life Conditions products has higher costs compared to low cost models. Regardless of the costs, as Mr Moroni declared “the investment is still worth to be made considering the advantage of having a reliable product at all times”. “Compared to buying other products, buying a photovoltaic system requires to pay particular attention to its quality. The plant's energy production has to be able to meet certain efficiency standards for at least twenty years and in every weather condition, including frequent extreme temperature changes. A photovoltaic system is a little generating station with all the quality and safety issues that come with it”. Between 2007 and 2010, the sector boom witnessed the birth of a huge number of photovoltaic producers, triggering a
A vicious cycle that, in the eyes of Mr Moroni, compromised quality standards, “particularly for little factories, without a well defined structure and therefore with low investment possibilities”.
Web 2.0 is about to restore some order in the chaos of the photovoltaic industry. The sharing of information on the web, also through the use of comparison websites as Pvcompare.net, allows to test the quality of both the company and its products before finalizing a purchase. “Nowadays is easy to verify whether a company's products are encountering systematic problems or not. Creating a list of the names of the unreliable players will help parting the good ones from the bad ones”
PVcompare team