Title of Dissertation: national renewable energy policy

Figure 16. 
Net sales of First Solar by segment, 2008-2014. 
The other companies have also rapidly expanded the share of their project 
development business. In Canadian Solar, the total solutions business, which consists 
primarily of solar power project development, EPC services, and O&M services, 
accounted for 44.5% of its net revenue in 2014, increasing from 11.5% in 2012. Trina 
completed 8 projects with the capacity of 233.3 MW as of December 2014, an increase 
from 2MW of installed system in December 2011. 
The struggling solar module market can explain why solar module manufacturers 
have expanded to downstream business. Sharp explained the rational of changing 
business model: “ (Solar module) market conditions deteriorated even further, due to 
factors such as continuing price declines caused by excess supply and intense 
competition. In this context, with the aim of profitability, Sharp worked to change its sale 
approach from solely focusing on solar cell modules to total systems and establish a 
business model that is more resilient to changing market conditions and currency rate 
fluctuations.” Contrast to the declining profitability of solar module market, solar project 
-
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Systems
Component
(Million dollars)

---

83 
development business has rapidly increased in recent years. Trina Solar said that the solar 
project development business was strategically important because the market is “growing 
quickly in China, supported by favorable government policies.” in its 2015 report.
With the changes of business portfolios, the solar module manufacturers are not 
just manufacturers at this point. These corporations describe themselves as “solar energy 
company,” “global leader in PV industry,” or “global provider of solar energy solutions.” 
First Solar positions itself as to “deliver meaningful PV energy solutions to varied energy 
problems worldwide.” It planned to compete with fossil-fuel-based power generation on 
an economic basis with “minimal subsidies or incentives.” 
Discussion 
The findings do not support the proposition, which was that multinational 
renewable energy corporation is more likely to engage in policymaking for favorable 
policies under the challenges of the global market. No evidence was detected that 
multinational solar corporations have attempted to engage in policymaking. Rather, they 
have been influenced by national policies and have adapted to the changes. 
The global financial crisis has negatively affected the increasing trend of demand 
in the global solar PV market. With the oversupply of the solar products, which had 
driven by solar manufacturers’ expansion of capacity under increasing trend of demand, 
this has led declining prices of solar products. Under these circumstances, governments 
had introduced the policies to protect domestic solar industry. This has negatively 
affected the sales and profitability of multinational corporations. The decreasing 
profitability of solar manufacturing has led the solar manufacturers to expand to 

---

84 
downstream business. As they have expanded to downstream business, the manufacturers 
have faced more policy risks from diverse regulations, permitting and approval processes.
The multinational solar corporations have influenced by traditional renewable 
energy policies, newly introduced protectionist policies, and existing non-renewable 
energy policies. The effect of traditional renewable energy policies has not changed much 
in recent years since they have a similar degree of uncertainty all the time. However, the 
effect of the new protectionist policies have increased since more countries, especially 
big markets such as the US, the EU, and India, have introduced those policies to protect 
domestic industry recently. Meanwhile, the existing non-renewable energy policies have 
affected solar corporations differently. They were included in the policy risks of solar 
corporations as the corporations expanded to new business. The permitting and approval 
processes related to building power plants did not affect the business of multinational 
solar corporations before they expanded to downstream business, but they became critical 
policy risks since the corporations started downstream business. As a result, multinational 
solar corporations’ policy risks have expanded and diversified. 
The literature on co-evolution of multinational corporations suggested that 
multinational corporations tended to co-evolve with the external environment under 
increasing uncertainty, but the findings of this research suggest that they tended to adapt 
to changes of the environment. Although uncertainty of policies has increased, increasing 
policies causing inefficiency of their business have been more serious risks for them. 
Under these circumstances, solar manufacturers adjusted their plans to expand 
manufacturing capacity, and expanded to downstream business.

---

85 
The findings show the adaptation of multinational solar corporations to the 
external environment, but they do not simply show the influence of the external 
environment on the corporations. Since the corporations have adapted to the changing 
environment, the external environment has also changed. The regulations and processes 
related to building power plants have included in relevant policies of the solar 
multinationals as they expanded to downstream business. The external environment 
changes by the adapting efforts of multinational corporations. In a broader perspective, 
multinational corporations evolve with the external environment through adapting to the 
new challenges from the environment.
It could be argued that multinational solar corporations might attempt to change 
policies, but they did not report those efforts in their annual reports. This study is limited 
in finding out corporate behaviors that were not reported in annual reports. Some 
corporations might engage in policymaking, but might not describe their activities in 
annual reports. It is also possible that corporations affected policymaking indirectly 
through industry associations or collaboration with other actors. These indirect activities 
may not be described in annual reports. This limitation can be partially addressed by the 
analyses in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, which will examine the interviews with the 
representatives of solar corporations. The findings of this study are revisited in the 
conclusion. 

---

86 
Chapter 4. Politics in the U.S. solar PV field 
Introduction 
The U.S. solar PV market has gone through significant changes in recent years. 
Most notably, the size of market has sharply grown. The annual capacity of solar PV 
installation has enormously increased to 6,212 MW in 2014 from 79 MW in 2005.
109
Currently, large utility scale projects account for a significant share of the market; in 
2014, the share of utility scale installation was approximately 60%, while it was only 3% 
in 2004. This expansion of market size has accompanied the rise of solar PV industry. 
According to the Solar Foundation, as of November 2014, the U.S. solar industry 
employed 173,807 workers, which has grown by 86% in recent five years.
110
As of 
November 2015, Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) has 572 member companies. 
Policies have played an important role in this rapid development of the solar PV 
industry. The federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for solar has significantly contributed 
to the rise of solar installation by providing a 30 percent tax credit for residential and 
commercial solar projects since 2006. Other than the ITC, many federal and state-level 
policies including the Loan Guarantee Program, net-metering, and Renewable Portfolios 
Standard (RPS) have encouraged the growth of the U.S. solar industry.
Even under this rapid growth, the U.S. solar market has not always been stable. 
Plummeting prices of solar products in the global market have led many solar 
109
Kann, S. et al.,