SolarWorld CEO Says Reducing Government Subsidies is Good for SolarWorld!

Chuck Sheketoff

Over at SolarWorld’s website there’s a film you are encouraged to download called SolarWorld Corporate Film 2006 (a 30mb WMV file).

There you learn that SolarWorld welcomed the German government’s plan to reduce subsidies for alternative energy development. According to the company’s CEO, Frank Asbeck, reducing subsidies motivates SolarWorld to accomplish its “mis-sun” of making solar energy more affordable.

At 7 minutes and 6 seconds into the film, SolarWorld’s CEO Frank Asbeck is asked by a German business news reporter

“The federal government wants to revise its financial aid for alternative energies, especially in the next few years. Do you believe support will be reduced, and if so, how do you plan to deal with it?”

SolarWorld CEO Asbeck responds

“I am expecting that the government take will diminish, that’s our motivation. The renewable energies act has an imposed 5 percent reduction per year, and that’s an admirable target. We want to be more affordable every year, perhaps more than 5 percent. We have a “mis-sun” at SolarWorld, not a “mission,” but a mis-sun, and it is possible. We want to sink the costs of solar energy by 50 percent in a foreseeable timeframe.”

So, the SolarWorld CEO essentially says to the government in Germany “go ahead, reduce our subsidies, because that helps motivate our company to make solar energy more affordable.”

But here in Oregon, SolarWorld’s “mis-sun” is mis-sing. The company tells the Governor, the Legislature and local government officials that it doesn’t want to pay taxes and that they want tax credit subsidies that they can sell. In other words, here in Oregon SolarWorld’s mission is to milk taxpayers for all it can get, affordability goals and the “mis-sun” be damned.

By Chuck Sheketoff July 08, 2008