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Finance » Page 3

The Economics of Residential Solar Installation

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Josh Lutton

Residential solar dealer profit margins look at lot like those for conventional electrical, plumbing, and HVAC contractors.  What should dealers do?

Over the past year, Woodlawn Associates has worked with nearly 20 residential solar dealer-installers on projects to optimize the costs of customer acquisition and installation. These projects were quite tactical, but it is worth considering some of the more strategic findings and their implications.

[Read more…]

Again, Higher Returns for Less Integrated Wind Turbine Manufacturers

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Josh Lutton

In a follow up to our earlier on wind turbine manufacturers, we found that there has been a reversal of the previous trend toward vertical integration in turbine manufacturing.  We also found two of the least vertically integrated players—Goldwind and REPower—have the highest returns on capital.

During this work we also had the opportunity to identify best-in-class manufacturing practices among wind turbine manufacturers, and determined that fewer than half of them do best-in-class supply chain management activities comprehensively:

  • Lean and six sigma up the supply chain
  • Hands-on supplier quality management
  • Evaluate total cost (including cost of quality, working capital), not just landed cost or ex-works unit cost
  • Optimize collaboration with strategic suppliers
  • Use comprehensive IT tools for supplier evaluation and management

Download a detailed set of findings here.

Beyond the Blue Chip: Financing of Emerging Wind Turbines

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Josh Lutton

We recently talked to equity investors, debt investors, and wind farm developers the United States to determine the advantages and disadvantages of using non-blue chip wind turbines. We found mixed interest in financing projects with emerging turbines. This financing will be more costly and shift more risks to the project sponsor than financing for blue chip turbines. For emerging vendors, the first priority should be to establish the capability to deal with any issues that may arise over the long term. The second step should be to minimize risks to developers and financiers, perhaps by self-financing projects or subsidizing financing. Finally, we suggest there may be some wind farm developers more open to the idea of using emerging turbines.

Download a detailed summary here.

Lower Vertical Integration Means Higher Returns in Wind Turbine Manufacturing

Posted on September 3, 2009 by Josh Lutton

We recently examined the level of vertical integration of wind turbine firms and compared it with their return on invested capital. Generally, we found firms with lower vertical integration tended to have higher returns on capital. We also surveyed top 20 wind farm developers in the United States to get their impressions of wind turbine vendors. Their answers suggested four clear groups—the “blue chip” players like GE, Siemens, and Vestas, a respected second tier, a few firms that are respected but seen as potential competitors because of their integration into development, and some reputation-challenged players.

Download our analysis here.

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