Hanwha SolarOne Says Solar Market Not Affected by Lower Oil Prices

In an interview with Fox Business in the U.S. on Jan. 23, Kim Dong-gwan, chief commercial officer of Hanwha SolarOne Co. and the eldest son of Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, said that a sharp drop in oil prices will not affect the solar energy business much.

New renewable energy, including solar energy, is costly and has lower generating efficiency than fossil energy. Therefore, its demands should become stronger when oil prices rise. However, Kim said, “Since the demand of solar energy is rather steadily increasing in the U.S., I have a positive outlook for its market in the future.”

He added, “Despite the recent drop in module prices, system prices have also decreased. So, the market, where the solar system is getting competitive power, is gradually expanding even without government subsidies.”

Also, he explained, “It is the wrong perspective to directly connect oil prices with solar energy. First, the amount of crude oil for power production is extremely limited, except for oil-producing countries. Rather, in the case of natural gas, the main material of power production around the world, when we take a look at the U.S. market particularly, the demand of solar energy has maintained rapid growth, even though the price of natural gas has remained very low in the last few years.”

This interview took place on the site where Hanwha Group completed the installation of a solar power generation apparatus with a maximum output of 280kW using around 640 modules on the Davos Congress Centre’s 1,000 m2 rooftop in Switzerland in 2013.

The 45th Davos Forum took place from Jan. 21 to 24. In the annual meeting, Hanwha Group searched for the future of solar energy and global financial businesses in line with the theme of “The New Global Context,” having engaged in vigorous activities for 6 consecutive years since 2010.

Kim stressed in the “Repowering the Economy” session in the Davos Forum on Jan. 21, “We should realize and approach solar energy from the point of view of companies’ capital cost reduction, deregulation, and social infrastructure investment including smart grids.”