????去年占據全球太陽能模塊和面板10％市場份額的尚德電力公司也有自身的麻煩。上周早些時候，尚德電力聲稱，該公司或許已經被GSF Capital公司欺騙了5.56億歐元，后者是尚德電力在一家名為環(huán)球太陽能基金公司（Global Solar Fund S.C.A，下文簡稱GSF公司）的意大利太陽能企業(yè)的普通合伙人，尚德電力持有這家企業(yè)80%的股權。2008年的信貸危機爆發(fā)之后，傳統(tǒng)的融資渠道日漸枯竭，環(huán)球太陽能基金公司轉向國家開發(fā)銀行（the China Development Bank，一家由中國國務院運營的國有銀行）求助。為了給環(huán)球太陽能基金公司提供一筆貸款，國家開發(fā)銀行需要一位中國的擔保人。2010年5月，尚德電力同意拿出5.54億歐元作為貸款擔保金。為了保護自己，尚德電力要求環(huán)球太陽能基金公司為這筆擔保金提供抵押品，該公司的確這樣做了，抵押品為價值5.6億歐元的德國債券。尚德電力首席財務官大衛(wèi)?金上周表示，環(huán)球太陽能基金公司聲稱已經把這些債券存放在了一家“享有盛譽的托管銀行”之中。

????快進到現在：飽受巨額債務之苦，明年將要償還巨額到期債務的尚德電力一直在尋求將手中的環(huán)球太陽能基金公司股權“貨幣化”的機會，也就是說，它希望兌現這筆股權，用來償還將于明年到期的部分債務。但尚德電力發(fā)現，本該由環(huán)球太陽能基金公司提供的抵押品（即德國債券）并不存在。上周，在紐約證券交易所上市的尚德電力的股價大幅跳水至1美元以下，對于這家據說要繼承這個星球的公司而言，這無疑是一個屈辱的時刻。一度高達140億美元的市值現在已經縮水至區(qū)區(qū)1.88億美元。尚德電力現在正在起訴環(huán)球太陽能基金公司。

????并非所有中國太陽能公司的境遇都像尚德電力那般可怕，但它們的日子也好不到哪里去。然而，太陽能產業(yè)遭受重創(chuàng)并不僅限于中國公司——第一太陽能公司（First Solar，位于亞利桑那州坦佩市）的股價去年暴跌了87%。長期以來，令外國競爭者非常恐懼的是，中國太陽能企業(yè)將甩開它們，一騎絕塵：在一個世人都認為最終將成為世界最大的國內市場上，這些中國公司不僅可以獲得政府的支持，還可以把不差于其他任何公司的技術與低至極限的成本結合在一起。

????那么，這些舉世無雙的公司為什么會淪為資本摧毀機器？它們未來的命運又將如何演變呢？正如桑福德伯恩斯坦公司(Sanford Bernstein)高級分析師邁克爾?帕克今年年初所言，太陽能產業(yè)是“一個從西歐和北美的政府中提取250億美元補貼的機制。”也就是說，鑒于與煤、水電和天然氣相比，太陽能一直缺乏競爭力，這項產業(yè)的生存嚴重依賴于政府以環(huán)境保護之名給予的補貼。全球金融危機、以及隨之而來的經濟大衰退，引爆了太陽能產業(yè)賴以生存的那個世界。首先，正如我們在尚德電力的案例中所看到的那樣，這個資本密集型產業(yè)幾乎不可能獲得巨額資本。更糟糕的是，這意味著由于財政預算的壓力增加，德國和西班牙這樣的國家已經不得不削減補貼。后來，美國方面針對某些中國造太陽能產品設置了關稅，歐洲也提出了自己的反傾銷申訴，進一步增加了中國太陽能產業(yè)的下行壓力。

????就短期而言，所有這些肯定會帶來傷害，但并不一定構成致命一擊。原因是，過去幾年以來，在減少太陽能的安裝成本方面，中國公司及其海外同行已經取得了巨大進步。這一產業(yè)的“圣杯”在于，達到所謂的“市電同價（grid parity）”，即在不接受補貼的情況下，太陽能能夠直接抗衡煤、天然氣或水力發(fā)電廠。根據桑福德伯恩斯坦公司的估算，市電同價將把太陽能從一個涉及250億美元的尋租產業(yè)轉化為一個向全球發(fā)電市場（價值高達5萬億美元）發(fā)起有力挑戰(zhàn)的競爭者。盡管財務狀況日益惡化，但尚德電力這樣的公司正在越來越接近這個神奇的節(jié)點。

????太陽能產業(yè)的問題是，幾乎所有其他的主要競爭對手也在接近這個節(jié)點。正如桑福德伯恩斯坦公司今年初的長篇研究報告所言，從投資者的角度來看，“好”產業(yè)是那些出現明顯的贏家，輸家出局，進而使贏家獲得更大利潤和更高資本回報率的產業(yè)。迄今為止，太陽能還不是一個“好”產業(yè)。在這個產業(yè)中，大量競爭對手不斷投入資本，壓低成本，但賺不了多少錢（如果真能賺到的話），亦無法驅使許多競爭者離開這個行業(yè)。

????在這方面，桑福德伯恩斯坦公司的分析師們提出了一個令人（當然是對太陽能投資者而言）心跳停止的觀點——太陽能正在轉變?yōu)橐粋€類似動態(tài)隨機存儲器（DRAM）的產業(yè)。數十年以來，動態(tài)隨機存儲器一直是一個資本密集型產業(yè)，日本競爭者和后來加入的由三星公司（Samsung）領銜的韓國公司展開了一場低利潤拉鋸戰(zhàn)，三星最終成為明確的行業(yè)領導者。

????正如桑福德伯恩斯坦公司的分析師詳盡指出的那樣，這樣的比較令人信服，這種情形很有可能成為中國太陽能企業(yè)的夢魘，更不用說為它們提供支持的中國政府了。原因是，把太陽能確認為未來五大核心業(yè)務之一的公司不是別人，正是三星公司。三星龐大的資產負債表規(guī)模足以讓中國當前任何一家競爭對手望塵莫及。這意味著，三星公司可以復制其在內存芯片產業(yè)的做法：甚至在市場持續(xù)低迷期間，投下巨資促使技術升級，壓低成本，以便在未來某一天將競爭對手橫掃出局。在這樣一個許多人推測將由中國企業(yè)主宰的產業(yè)中，目前還看不出哪家公司有能力與三星展開長期的較量。

????這意味著中國需要發(fā)生一兩件事情：要么政府允許（甚或促進）太陽能產業(yè)的整合——盡管太陽能產業(yè)的市值出現如此驚人的下跌，但這一幕還沒有出現。要么政府施加壁壘，阻止三星和其他意欲進入這一領域的外國大公司——桑福德伯恩斯坦公司認為通用電氣公司（GE）可能有此想法——進入龐大的中國市場。

????但就長期而言，即使這樣做可能也無法奏效。永遠要銘記的是，“市電同價”這一太陽能產業(yè)的終極夢想是一個不斷變化的目標。天然氣價格在北美發(fā)現巨額儲藏之后出現驚人下降就體現出了這一點。桑福德伯恩斯坦公司的分析師邁克爾?帕克準確地指出，中國的天然氣價格現在依然比美國高5倍。重點在于，雖然在美國，太陽能還遠遠不具備成本競爭力，但在中國，太陽能依然能夠獲得這一優(yōu)勢。果真如此的話，潛力巨大的國內市場就將成為中國太陽能公司的救世主。

????或許吧。但需要銘記的是，就“潛在”的天然氣儲量而言，在這個星球上，只有一個國家超過美國，那就是中國。雖然中國的地質條件比北美更加困難，此外還有其他約束條件（水資源缺乏是最大的問題——水是水力壓裂開采過程的關鍵所在），但接受本文作者采訪的石油和天然氣行業(yè)高管相信，這些突出問題都是可以克服的。這意味著，在大約10年之后，中國的天然氣價格或許要比現在低得多。

????因此，中國太陽能企業(yè)股價的集體跳水或許既顯示了過去4年來發(fā)生的事情，也同樣預示著它們的未來走向。太陽能或許是中國的未來產業(yè)——一個永遠都屬于未來的產業(yè)。

????譯者：任文科

????Suntech, which accounted for 10% of the solar module and panel market globally last year, has its own troubles. Earlier this week it alleged that it may have been had been defrauded of 556 million euros by GSF Capital, the general partner in an Italian solar firm called Global Solar Fund S.C.A, of which Suntech owns 80%. After the credit crunch of 2008, when traditional sources of financing dried up, GSF turned to the China Development Bank, a state owned institution run by the State Council in Beijing, the country's central policy-making body. In order to provide a loan to GSF, the CDB needed a Chinese guarantor. Suntech, in May of 2010, agreed to put forward 554 million euros as a loan guarantee. In order to protect itself, it then asked GSF Capital to post collateral for the funds, which it said it did, in the form of 560 million euros worth of German bonds. GSF claimed to have placed the funds in a "reputable custodian bank," as David King, Suntech's chief financial officer put it this week.

????Fast forward to the present: Suntech, laboring under a huge debt burden, with large payments coming due next year, was looking to "monetize" its investment in GSF; that is, it wanted to cash out in order to pay down some of its debt next year. But Suntech discovered -- allegedly -- that the German bonds supposedly put forth as collateral by GSF capital didn't exist. Suntech's stock slumped to less than $1 on the NYSE earlier this week, a humiliating moment for a company that was supposed to inherit the earth. A market cap that was once north of $14 billion has now been slashed to a mere $188 million. Suntech is now suing GSF Capital.

????Not all Chinese solar companies are in quite as dire shape as Suntech; but they're close. And while it's true that the rout in solar is not limited to just Chinese companies -- Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar's (FSLR) stock has plunged 87% in the last year -- the longstanding fear among their foreign competitors was that the China-based firms were going to separate themselves from the pack; they could combine technology no worse than anyone else's with rock bottom costs, as well as government support in a domestic market that would eventually, everyone assumed, become the world's largest.

????So why did these alleged world-beaters instead become the capital destruction machine they've turned into, and what does the future hold for them? The solar industry has been, as Michael Parker, a senior analyst at Sanford Bernstein put it earlier this year, "a $25 billion mechanism to extract subsidies from Western European and North American governments." That is, given that solar has been uncompetitive relative to coal, hydro and natural gas, it relied on government subsidies—granted in the name of environmental protection—to exist. The global financial crisis, and the deep recessions that have ensued, blew that world apart. First—as we have seen in Suntech's case— for a time it made access to capital nearly impossible in a capital-intensive industry. Worse, it meant countries like Germany and Spain, out of necessity, had to slash subsides as pressures on their national budgets increased. Later, the U.S. placed tariffs on some China made solar products, and Europe filed its own anti-dumping complaint, adding to the downward pressure on the Chinese industry.

????In the short run all that hurt, to be sure; but it wasn't necessarily a deathblow. Because over the past few years, Chinese companies and their global counterparts made enormous progress in reducing the installed cost of solar energy. The Holy Grail in the industry is to meet what's known as "grid parity," the point at which solar could go mano a mano with coal or gas or hydro-driven power plants, without subsidy. Grid parity, Sanford Bernstein estimates, would transform solar from a rent seeking $25 billion industry to a serious competitor in the $5 trillion global power generation market. Companies like Suntech, despite its deteriorating finances, have been drawing closer and closer to that magical place.

????The problem for the industry is that almost every other major competitor has too. As Bernstein's lengthy research report earlier this year argued, "good" industries (from an investor's standpoint) are ones in which clear winners emerge, and losers exit, thus enabling the winners to earn bigger profits and generate positive returns on capital. Solar to date has not been a "good" industry. It's one at which any number of competitors keep throwing capital, driving down costs, but not making much (if any) money, and not driving many competitors out of the business.

????In this, the Bernstein analysts put forth the heart stopping (for solar investors, that is) notion that solar is turning into the DRAM industry: a business which for decades was a capital intensive, low profit tong war, waged between Japanese competitors and, later, Korean companies, led by Samsung—which eventually emerged as the clear industry leader.

????The comparison, as the Bernstein analysis notes at length, is compelling; and it's a potential nightmare for Chinese solar companies, not to mention for the government that has supported them. For none other than Samsung has identified solar energy as one of its five core business going forward. And Samsung has a balance sheet which absolutely dwarfs that of any current Chinese competitor. That means, just as it did in memory chips, it can invest heavily even during frequent downturns in the market, upgrading its technology and driving down costs so that someday it clears the field of competitors. In an industry in which so many speculated that Chinese firms would dominate, there isn't a single one out there at the moment that seems capable of competing long-term with Samsung.

????That means one of two things needs to happen in China; either the government needs to allow-- or even prompt -- consolidation in the industry, something that hasn't happened yet despite the astonishing declines in market cap. Or, it could wall off the massive Chinese market from powerful foreign companies, like Samsung and others who might be tempted to play in the space (Bernstein suggests GE may be tempted.)

????But even that might not help in the long run. Remember always that grid parity, nirvana for the solar industry, is a moving target. The stunning price decline for natural gas, coming in the wake of huge discoveries in North America, demonstrates that. Bernstein analyst Michael Parker notes, accurately, that the natural gas price in China is still five times higher than what it is in the U.S. The point being that while solar is simply not close to being cost competitive in the United States, it still can get there in China, and it if it does, the potentially massive domestic market will provide salvation for Chinese solar companies.

????Maybe. But remember that in terms of potential natural gas reserves, the United States is only surpassed by one country on the planet: China. And while the geology here is more difficult than in North America, and there are other constraints (a lack of water being the most significant-- water being critical in the fracking process), oil and gas industry executives interviewed for this story believe these issues are eminently surmountable. Which means, in ten years or so, the price of natural gas in China might be much lower than it is now.

????So the crash in solar equity values in China -- China's solar eclipse -- might be telling us as much about the future as it is about what's happened over the past four years. It's just possible that solar is the industry of the future in China—and always will be.