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Wrenches,<br>
A year ago there was a thread here about Kyocera suddenly canceling
orders and dropping dealers. We weren't affected, as Kyocera has
never been more than a minor supplier since Photocomm/Golden Genesis
days. But I was recently cold-contacted by their new sales rep for
our region, seeking to drum up possible business. I responded by
inquiring about this issue. In my opinion, his response was pretty
honest and direct, so when I called yesterday about a few small 12V
modules, I asked if I could share it with the list, and he welcomed
it.<br>
Allan<br>
<br>
<b>Allan Sindelar</b><br>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:Allan@positiveenergysolar.com"><span style="color:
rgb(0, 0, 153);">Allan@positiveenergysolar.com</span></a></span><br>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">NABCEP Certified Photovoltaic
Installer<br>
NABCEP Certified Technical Sales Professional<br>
New Mexico EE98J Journeyman Electrician<br>
<b>Positive Energy, Inc.</b><br>
3201 Calle Marie<br>
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507<br>
<b>505 424-1112</b><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.positiveenergysolar.com/" target="_blank">www.positiveenergysolar.com</a></span><br>
<br>
<br>
-------- Original Message --------
<table class="moz-email-headers-table" border="0" cellpadding="0"
cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT" valign="BASELINE">Subject: </th>
<td>RE: Kyocera Solar Introduction</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT" valign="BASELINE">Date: </th>
<td>Mon, 9 May 2011 13:13:21 -0700</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>Robertson, Craig <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:Craig.Robertson@kyocera.com"><Craig.Robertson@kyocera.com></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT" valign="BASELINE">To: </th>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:allan@positiveenergysolar.com"><allan@positiveenergysolar.com></a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Hi
Allan,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my email.
I am hopeful I will be able to give you a reason to try
Kyocera’s grid tie modules in the future.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p>
Regarding the</span> <span style="color: rgb(31,
73, 125);">RE-Wrenches post. I wish I could say that this was
not a legitimate issue, but unfortunately this was the single
most challenging business issue from last year and in my
opinion we handled it poorly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span
style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">We went from a period at the
beginning of last year were we had Megawatts in inventory and
our pricing was lagging behind most other established module
suppliers. These problems caused Kyocera to sign up new
accounts and accept every order we could. Then in about a one
week period everything changed, we went from having Megawatts
in inventory to being sold out for the next 6 months. Because
we had so much demand in such a short period of time, there
was no way to support all the projects that we had quoted
within a reasonable timeframe. We had to reject and push out
many POs from customers. It was not just smaller customers
like Don from the post below, who had orders pushed out or
rejected, It was large and medium accounts too. It was a
bittersweet time at Kyocera because we were sold out but had
damaged relationships with our customer base.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">
Now that you have the background, here are the
steps that we have taken to insure that this doesn’t happen
again. Kyocera hired a full time analyst to track everything
related to module supply. We now have a watts tracker that
tracks every accepted order and highly confident projects.
This insures that we do not accept too many orders. We also
have a projects tracker that insures every open quotation is
tracked, so that within a certain confidence range, we do not
over quote. With these changes in place, I think we will be
in a much better position to handle future spikes in demand.<o:p>
<br>
</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">
If you have any questions regarding these past
events please do not hesitate to ask. Going forward, I would
like to arrange a call to introduce myself and reintroduce
Kyocera. Please let me know when you have 10 minutes available
that I can call you to talk. <br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
<span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;">Thanks,</span><span
style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;">Craig
Robertson</span></b><span style="color: navy;"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;">KYOCERA
Solar, Inc. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color:
windowtext;"><ns0:address><ns0:address><ns0:street><span
style="color: navy;">7812 </span><ns0:address><ns0:street><span
style="color: navy;">East Acoma Drive</span></ns0:street></ns0:address></ns0:street></ns0:address><span
style="color: navy;"> <br>
</span><ns0:city><span style="color: navy;">Scottsdale</span></ns0:city><span
style="color: navy;">, </span><ns0:state><span
style="color: navy;">AZ</span></ns0:state><span
style="color: navy;"> </span><ns0:postalcode><span
style="color: navy;">85260</span></ns0:postalcode></ns0:address></span><span
style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;"> <br>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;">Office:
(480) 948-8003/7818 <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="blocked::mailto:craig.robertson@kyocera.com"
title="mailto:craig.robertson@kyocera.com
blocked::mailto:craig.robertson@kyocera.com">craig.robertson@kyocera.com</a>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;"><a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.kyocerasolar.com/"
title="http://www.kyocerasolar.com/
blocked::http://www.kyocerasolar.com/
http://www.kyocerasolar.com/"><span style="font-size:
11pt; color: purple;">www.kyocerasolar.com</span></a></span><span
style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;"> <br>
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;"><br>
</span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div style="border-width: 1pt medium medium; border-style: solid
none none; border-color: rgb(181, 196, 223)
-moz-use-text-color -moz-use-text-color; padding: 3pt 0in
0in;">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;
font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";
color: windowtext;">From:</span></b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family:
"Tahoma","sans-serif"; color:
windowtext;"> Allan Sindelar [<a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="mailto:allan@positiveenergysolar.com">mailto:allan@positiveenergysolar.com</a>]
<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, May 08, 2011 10:30 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Robertson, Craig<br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:randy@positiveenergysolar.com">randy@positiveenergysolar.com</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: Kyocera Solar Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<pre>Craig,<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Thank you for writing. We occasionally buy a few KC/KD135s for existing customers with 12V needs, but haven't found much reason to use Kyocera over other established brands.<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Before considering the possibility of future partnering, could you review and address the RE-Wrenches posts from about a year ago that I have pasted below? Was this a legitimate issue, and if so, how was it addressed by Kyocera? <o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Thank you,<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Allan<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre><o:p> </o:p></pre>
<pre><o:p> </o:p></pre>
<pre>5/17/2010:<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Without any word, they have stopped taking orders.! Not only could they not fulfill an immediate need, they refused to even take a pretty nice order for future delivery.????<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Who is still getting Kyocera? Whats the deal? Are they dumping the small accounts??<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>If you are still doing business with Kyocera, what size orders are you placing? Not looking for biz intelligence here, just respond as small, medium or large.<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Thanks for comments and information. Just trying to figure out where to go from here. Like I'm looking for a supplier who treats smaller shops with some respect. My comments do not reflect on my salesperson at Kyocera who is very upset by being forced to refuse orders.<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Don Loweburg<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Offline Solar<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre><o:p> </o:p></pre>
<pre>5/18/2010:<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>It's the same thing here. They aren't taking any large orders from us. <o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Steven Lawrence<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer(tm)<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre><o:p> </o:p></pre>
<pre>5/18/2010: If what you say is true, this is not the first time Kyocera has done this.<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Back in the first quarter of 2006, we were cruising along installing about<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>15 kW/mo of Kyocera, a mix of 170s and 200s. I had a six month forecast in<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>that vicinity and I would take 10 kW one month and 20 kW the next.<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Completely out of the blue, without any warning whatsoever, Kyocera stopped<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>shipping to us, not one module, and told us that they had no legal or moral<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>obligation to fulfill the current orders or anything else on our forecast.<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Furthermore, they could not tell us when they would be able to ship modules<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>to us. <o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>They lost their Los Angeles sales person, soon afterwards; hired a<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>replacement and promptly lost the replacement. They then went for many<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>months without a sales person.<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>It looks like déjà vu all over again.<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>- Peter <o:p></o:p></pre>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.positiveenergysolar.com/" target="_blank"></a></span>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On 5/6/2011 12:36 PM, Robertson, Craig wrote:
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hi Allan and Randy,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My name is Craig Robertson, sales manager of
the central region at KYOCERA Solar, Inc. I am based out of
Scottsdale AZ. I just moved to the Grid Tie side of Kyocera
Solar. I was formerly working in the off-grid and we recently
merged the two divisions, so I will be able to share off-grid
war stories with Allan. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I know you currently work with Sunpower and
Schott. You still have an account at Kyocera, and I would like
to explore the possibility of potentially partnering together.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
A brief update of Kyocera: Our solar panel output range from 20W
to 240W, and from Jun/Jul time frame, we will launch 245W. We
have two factories in North America, one in San Diego California
and one in Tijuana Mexico for a total North American production
capacity of 300MW.<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I would like to talk with both of you in more
detail and I am looking forward to hearing from you.<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;">Thanks,</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;">Craig
Robertson</span></b><span style="color: navy;"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;">KYOCERA
Solar, Inc. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;">7812
East Acoma Drive <br>
Scottsdale, AZ 85260 </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;">Office:
(480) 948-8003/7818 <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="blocked::mailto:craig.robertson@kyocera.com"
title="mailto:craig.robertson@kyocera.com
blocked::mailto:craig.robertson@kyocera.com">craig.robertson@kyocera.com</a>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: navy;"><a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.kyocerasolar.com/"
title="http://www.kyocerasolar.com/
blocked::http://www.kyocerasolar.com/
http://www.kyocerasolar.com/"><span style="font-size: 11pt;
color: purple;">www.kyocerasolar.com</span></a></span><span
style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";
color: navy;"> <br>
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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