In March this year we released the first Altman Z-Score on Sinovoltaics.com, outlining which Asian PV manufacturers are most likely to go into brankruptcy and which PV manufacturers come out strongest.

Since March this year the PV market has changed significantly with an emphasize on oversupply in Q3 & Q4 (see Financial Post, PV-Tech etc.).

The main cause for the oversupply has been this year’s production expansion amongst Asian manufacturers (> 18GW of solar module capacity) and a sudden slow down in demand in China, caused by a cut in subsidies in June.

The current situation looks similar to the boom-bust cycle we’ve seen back in late 2011, which resulted in a wave of consolidation as prices plunged and losses piled up.

Are we in for the next wave of consolidation in our industry?

What happens to solar module warranties when a manufacturer goes bankrupt?

How to assess the risk of your manufacturing partner going bankrupt, without devoting a complete study on its financial reports?

One proven and fairly quick way to predict if a PV manufacturer may face bankruptcy within the next 2 years is the Altman Z-Score.

Click link to see table showing the Altman Z-Scores of major, publicly listed Asian, European and American manufacturers at the end of the 3rd Quarter of 2016.

Source: Altman Z-Score Q3 2016: which PV manufacturers are financially most stable?