14 DAY TRIAL // Not very long ago, Colorado-based company IHS released a set of predictions concerning how the solar market would transform throughout the course of 2014.
These predictions can be summed up as follows: it is going to be a surprisingly bright and sunshiny year, at least for the global solar industry.
“After two years of a punishing downturn, the global solar industry is on the rebound,” said Ash Sharma, the company's senior research director.
Interestingly enough, it appears that the year 2013 was not too shabby either. On the contrary, corporate and project funding for the solar power sector increased to a considerable extent.
Long story short, an investigation carried out by specialists working with consultancy company Mercom Capital Group has found that, last year, large-scale solar project funding increased by a whopping $5 billion (€3.66 billion).
More precisely, it upped from $8.7 billion (€6.38 billion) documented back in 2012 to an impressive $13.6 billion (€9.98 billion), PV Tech tells us.
As far as corporate funding is concerned, it appears that its value grew from $8 billion (€5.87) in 2012 to $10 billion (€7.33 billion) in 2013, the same source details.
“While venture funding levels were down, overall fundraising was up and public market financings were really strong in 2013,” Raj Prabhu, the current chief executive of Mercom Capital Group commented on the findings of this investigation.
“Higher valuations among public solar companies have opened up the capital markets again as an avenue for fundraising at attractive terms. IPOs [initial public offerings] are back,” he went on to argue.
Merger and acquisition activity also went into overdrive and nearly doubled to $12.7 billion (€9.32) in 2013, the consultancy company says.
On the downside, the Mercom Capital Group report concerning the evolution of the global solar industry in 2013 documents 28 companies that were forced to go into bankruptcy protection in said year, the same source reports. Of these 28 companies, 18 were manufacturers.