Solar Bubble (ASTI) (JKS) (PWER) (HSOL) (JASO) (TSL) Coming for These Firms?

The solar industry is under duress to say the least, and the very real possibility China may end up creating the first solar bubble is now being bantered about in the media, with solar companies like Ascent Solar Technologies (ASTI), Jinko Solar (NYSE:JKS), Power-One Inc (NASDAQ:PWER), Hanwha SolarOne Co., Ltd.(NASDAQ:HSOL), JA Solar (NASDAQ:JASO), Trina Solar (NYSE:TSL), sure to come under stress after a seemingly unhindered run for several years before 2009.

Forbes' William Pentland wrote, "The epic expansion planned for the latter part of this decade may create the world’s first solar-energy bubble. The existing solar supply chain is likely too shallow to sustain growth on this scale. Unless the industry develops scalable infrastructure over the next four years, China’s planned installation of 8 GWs of solar capacity annually between 2015 and 2020 is likely to create severe bottlenecks in the solar supply chain. These bottlenecks could radically inflate the price of basic materials like silicon and create labor shortages that would affect the costs of manufacturing solar modules, designing and installing new solar systems and operating and maintaining already installed systems."

Combined with Germany and Italy cutting back on solar subsidies, it would make the China market even more important as far as solar goes, and with little demand from other countries, will disporportunately affect to view of the industry. during the coming years, which appear to be very negative.

Trina Solar (TSL) closed Monday at $26.78, dropping $0.06, or 0.22 percent.