[RE-wrenches] Evergreen to China, What is American made?

[Nick Soleil]

    This thread is hilarious and tragic.  What started a couple days ago as an attempt to desperately find a source for US made modules lead the group to discuss the always American made Evergreen, but mid-thread (yesterday) Evergreen announces that they are moving their assembly to China.  So what now Bob-O, Mexico may be better than China, but is China better than China?
    So what now?  I use BP mostly, which always provided American made options, and we would sell those to the Buy-American crowd.  However, beginning a couple months back, those American lines began getting  'Made in China' stickers too, (with no notice to us.)  One of my customer's was pissed when he saw that sticker after paying extra for American made.
    There is Unisolar in the US.  Does First Solar manufacture in the US?

     Honestly, I am glad that panel prices have come down so far, sorry if that is making life hard for Evergreen and other manufacturers, but solar should be more affordable.  If all the manufactureres move to China, then atleast my competitors can't use American Made as a selling point against me.  Now instead, they can remind customers that the BP in BP Solar stands for British Petroleum.  "Yes, it is the same company as the oil company."
Nick Soleil
Project Manager
Advanced Alternative Energy Solutions, LLC
PO Box 657
Petaluma, CA 94953
Cell:   707-321-2937
Office: 707-789-9537
Fax:    707-769-9037




________________________________
From: Mark Frye <markf at berkeleysolar.com>
To: jryago at netscape.com; RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Sent: Thu, November 5, 2009 7:02:04 AM
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Evergreen - now what?

 
Very interesting questions Jeff.  What exactly do 
we mean when we say "USA products".
 
I use Sharp exclusively.  I believe the 
silicon ingots are grown in Russia.  They are sliced and doped in China. 
But they are assembled into modules in Tennesse.
 
Does this make it a product of the USA? If not, should 
I stop using Sharp. But what about all those jobs in 
Tennesse?
 
Mark Frye 
Berkeley Solar Electric Systems 
303 Redbud Way 
Nevada City,  CA 95959 
(530) 401-8024 
www.berkeleysolar.com  
 


________________________________
 From: re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org 
[mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Jeff 
Yago
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 7:00 AM
To: RE-wrenches
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Evergreen - now 
what?



We are currently waiting on a stack of Evergreen modules (which are 
now very late to ship!) and we were getting ready to order another batch, 
so does this mean we should be looking into another supplier?  
 
We try very hard to buy USA products, but that is getting harder and harder 
to do.  It looks like its now just SolarWorld in California. What 
other module manufacturers are still actually making their modules in US and not 
importing from China.
 
Jeff Yago
DTI SolarNet


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20091106/227f86fa/attachment-0003.html>