Despite crappy economic conditions, the mobile equipment market – which IHS defines as not just consumer handsets and tablets but also cellular network equipment – is growing 13 percent this year and will experience an 18 percent spurt in 2014, growing to $444 billion, the firm projects. IHS chalks up the coming boom to mobile broadband, particularly the growing adoption of LTE technologies.

The LTE infrastructure market is still quite small, accounting this year for only $8 billion and a mere $4 billion in 2011. But the LTE ecosystem has a long tail. Device revenues are increasing due to the growing number of smartphone and tablet sales., which take advantage of 4G’s increased bandwidth. What’s more those same mobile broadband trends are increasing wireless semiconductor sales, increasing demand for more powerful applications processor, more advanced radio silicon and a bevy of different device sensors.

Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock user Reno Martin

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Two companies even filed for bankruptcies in this week alone: manufacturer Q-Cells, which was the worlds largest solar cell maker in 2008 and power plant developer Solar Trust of America, which just a year ago was on its way to build a few gigawatts of solar projects in the American Southwest.

The fate of Solar Trust, which is mostly owned by Solar Millennium, is a reminder of the difficulties of shepherding a power plant project to completion, even when all the permits are in hand. Solar Trust’s crown jewel project was the 1 GW Blythe Solar farm in California, and at one point the company was set to snag a $2.1 billion federal loan guarantee to build it before it decided to withdraw from the loan guarantee process last summer and change the technology it would use for Blythe.

Solar Millennium tried to sell Solar Trust to a fellow German company, Solarhybrid, only to see Solarhybird, too, file for bankruptcy last month.

So here’s our tally of the solar company bankruptcies over the past year and there’s probably more that we haven’t heard about. Many of them are manufacturers who had a tough time dealing with lower-than-expected demand, plummeting prices and financial market turmoil.

Photo courtesy of Josh Giovo via Flickr

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Boston-based Satcon makes inverters that convert direct current from solar cells to alternating current to feed to the grid. Inverters play a critical role in solar power generation, and startups that aim to improve inverters’ performance have attracted some big investments from venture capitalists.

Satcon’s decision to close its factory in Ontario and cut about 140 employees worldwide reflects a trend that took hold last year when solar companies – mostly solar cell and panel makers – began announcing layoffs, factory closures and bankruptcies. A pileup of solar energy equipment and the corresponding fall in prices have caused not only declining profits but a trade complaint against Chinese silicon solar cell and panel makers.

The complaint contends Chinese manufacturers have received unfair government help to boost their production and sell their products at below-market prices. The U.S. International Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce are reviewing the complaint, which seeks to impose duties on Chinese imports.

The global inverter market saw a 20-percent decline in revenue during the third quarter of 2011, said IMS Research last month. Although prices stopped falling quickly in the third quarter, they were still 15 percent lower on average than in 2010.

Meanwhile, San Jose, Calif.-based GlobalWatt said it will ditch a plan to build a $177 million silicon solar panel factory in Michigan. The company apparently had started production on a small scale at what was to be a larger factory in Saginaw, Mich., and NBC has reported  Michigan officials are saying GlobalWatt presented false information when it tried to line up government incentives for the factory.

Here’s our list of solar companies that have gone out of business or shrunk their operations in light of the tough market:

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The Michigan-based company said it needs to stop production because it has made more solar panels than it can sell. The company only opened its plant in Ontario, Canada, earlier this year, hoping to take advantage of the regional market’s generous government subsidies. But the company has long been struggling to grow and make money.

While many solar companies experienced big jumps in sales and profits in 2010, Energy Conversion had to implement cost-cutting plans and moved some of its manufacturing to Mexico. It took more cost-cutting measures, including layoffs, earlier this year, and it is now expecting to lay off another 500 workers by the end of this year.

It no doubt experienced greater setbacks when, earlier this year, reports about low demand in Europe — the world’s largest solar market — and a pileup of unused solar panels in warehouses began to surface. Those reports have come from the industry’s leader in low-cost manufacturing — cadmium-telluride solar panel maker First Solar — and from makers of silicon solar panels, which dominate the market today.

Energy Conversion’s shares fell 35 percent to reach $0.40 per share in recent trading.

Questions have long been raised about Energy Conversion’s ability to survive. The company’s amorphous-silicon solar panels, sold under the Uni-Solar brand, are far less effective than silicon solar panels, and that makes its products unattractive in markets where government subsidies are written to reward projects that can generate as much as electricity as possible. It therefore has to make them cheap enough to make up for the lower efficiencies, something that First Solar does with its cadmium-telluride solar panels. Even here Energy Conversion hasn’t delivered. For its 2011 fiscal year, which ended in June, the company posted $305.4 million in losses on $232.5 million in revenues, compared with $457.2 million in losses on $254.4 million in revenues for fiscal 2010.

Energy Conversion’s selling point is that its solar panels are pliable thin films without the use of glass as a protective layer. That design can be attractive for projects that require lightweight equipment and want to forgo the use of mounting systems, though those features serve specific needs for rooftop solar. The pliable thin films also find uses in consumer gadgets and military equipment.

The company isn’t the only one hurting. Many manufactures have filed bankruptcy (Solyndra, SpectraWatt, Evergreen Solar), while others have closed factories or reduced production at existing factories. First Solar started building a factory in Vietnam earlier this year but has put that plan on hold because it, too, needs to cut costs. Suntech Power, the largest silicon solar panel maker, announced on Wednesday that it won’t be expanding manufacturing in 2012.

Photo courtesy of Energy Conversion Devices

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In addition to The Pirate Bay acquisition, GGF also said it would be acquiring file-sharing technology company, Peeralism, for 100 million Swedish kronor, at least 50 million Swedish kronor of which will be in cash. From the press release:

“Peerialism has developed a new data distribution technology which now can be introduced on the best known file – sharing site, The Pirate Bay. Since the technology is compatible with the existing it will quickly allow for new values to be created for all key stakeholders and facilitate new business opportunities”, says Johan Ljungberg, CEO Peerialism.

According to its web site, Global Gaming Factory X AB has the biggest network of Internet cafés and gaming centers in the world.

The Pirate Bay was on the losing end of a court case earlier this year. The founders were found guilty of infringing copyright law, sentenced to a year in jail each, and ordered to pay $4.5 million in damages to 17 entertainment companies.

Needless to say, this is huge news and creates a tectonic shift in the world of online piracy. We’ll have more throughout the day.

Update: Janko Roettgers’ analysis: 5 Things to Know About The Pirate Bay Sale

Wednesday update: So What Will Become of The Pirate Bay?

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Energy Conversion, through its subsidiary United Solar Ovonic, will contribute thin-film panels in exchange for equity in the projects. Enfinity, which is currently developing more than 120 MW of photovoltaic projects around the world, will oversee project management and financing. The companies declined to put a value on the deal, saying only that they don’t expect to keep the projects on their balance sheets for long, but plan to sell them to third-party investors within 12 months of the start of commercial operation.

The partnership is part of what Energy Conversion CEO Mark Morelli is calling the firm’s “demand-creation strategy.” The company, a leader in making thin films for the building-integrated and commercial rooftop markets, said today its profits fell to $1.3 million in the most recent quarter from $7 million during the same period last year. Morelli blamed the drop on widespread pressures on the industry, primarily customers’ difficulty in accessing project financing. So the company is looking for creative ways to create demand, and the deal with Enfinity is one of them.

But Energy Conversion’s move is as much about an investment opportunity as it is about spurring solar panel sales, according to Jed Dorsheimer, an analyst with Canaccord Adams. “Credit is tight, so companies are exploring the idea of taking an owner-operator position for a temporary time frame with the belief that if the market rebounds, their investments will provide a good return,” he said. In other words, the firm truly believes it’s making a smart investment decision.

Fellow thin-film maker First Solar has jumped into the project development business as well. In March, the Tempe, Ariz., firm agreed to buy the photovoltaic project pipeline of OptiSolar, including a 550 MW project to supply electric utility Pacific Gas & Electric with solar power. The thin-film maker also has entered into a 25-year power purchase agreement with Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a wholesale electric power supplier serving Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming. As part of the deal, First Solar will build and operate a 30 MW ground-mounted PV power plant in northeastern New Mexico.

Tough times in the solar industry call for innovative initiatives. Companies must either find ways to survive, or follow MMA Renewable Ventures’ path and sell off their assets.

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That debate has taken place amid a volatile period in the solar sector. The Claymore/MAC Global Solar Energy ETF, an index dedicated to solar firms, dropped 8 percent Monday. In the previous four weeks, the TAN rose 50 percent, more than tripling the 16-percent rally in the S&P 500.

Some are suggesting it’s time to buy beaten-down solar stocks, while others are arguing there’s value because the bad news is priced in and good news is starting to emerge. Wall Street analysts, often criticized for being blindly bullish on stocks, are this time among the sector’s staunchest bears.

Take China’s announcement late last week that it would offer subsidies equivalent to as much as 60 percent of the cost of installation, and boost demand by as much as 200 megawatts. The news sent solar stocks soaring — even those that don’t have a strong market in China. But analysts were quick to point out that details of the spending were vague and that benefits would only emerge over the long term.

That sums up the quandary for solar investors. The promise of healthy returns is oh-so-tantalizing, but always in some uncertain future. It’s not so much that the solar industry is in decline — it’s stalled. And bearish analysts are arguing that the industry will be stalled longer than many of the optimists realize. The bad news up to now may be priced in to stock prices, but the bad news to come is not.

That message was hammered home in a recent report from Sunil Gupta of Morgan Stanley. Not only will financing remain tight this year, he says, but prices will fall further than many expect. And while many solar manufacturers are estimating that prices of polysilicon wafers and modules will decline by 10-15 percent, Gupta sees them dropping 30-35 percent. But the real problem is excess supply. Even with demand in the U.S. and Japan likely to rise, solar companies will produce 9.6 gigawatts of supply this year, nearly double the 5.1 gigawatts last year. Customers will keep canceling orders, so inventories could pile up this year.

Gupta’s glum conclusion: “Most of the companies are unlikely to produce any profit for the next two years.”

There are positive signs, such as those suggesting China is helping some companies raise money. Yingli Green Energy said Friday a branch of the Bank of China would extend as much as $880 million in loans. Solarfun’s stock might have tumbled after a dismal earnings report had it not mentioned that Chinese banks remained “accommodative” with capital.

But that may simply prolong the overcapacity problem. Solar manufacturers have many more panels, modules and wafers than they can sell. The oversupply is good for customers installing solar because it means there’s lot of good, cheap solar power to install. But it’s bad for solar makers — and for a while at least for their investors as well.

The oversupply troubles may spread to thin-film makers as well. A report over the weekend from Barron’s argued that polysilicon prices are getting low enough to take market share away from First Solar and Energy Conversion Devices, whose thin-film products have been much cheaper than polysilicon solar panels. That could leave the solar sectors without a reliable safe haven in coming months.

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Energy Conversion, whose proprietary thin-film technology has long been cheaper than the more-efficient crystalline silicon embraced by many solar companies, reported earnings for the last three months of 2008. Overall, investors like the news: Revenue grew 83 percent from the same quarter a year earlier to $103.1 million. The company also swung to a 33 cents a share profit, versus a 14 cent loss. Both were slightly above analyst expectations, and the stock rallied 9 percent on Monday to $28.16.

On the conference call to discuss the numbers, the company said its accounts receivables in the quarter

“increased due to delayed receipt of certain customer payments…. Certain of our customers at the end of the quarter didn’t make their payments on time to meet our cutoff and those payments came in sometime in January. So we did have some late payments come through.”

One big reason for the delayed payments seems to be that customers are having trouble getting access to project financing. So Energy Conversion is sticking its toe into the business of helping them find money. It’s been working with companies like Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase  in the U.S. One project in Europe involved multiple financing partners. It’s a new direction for them, Morelli said,

“We have not really been active out there working with our channel partners and their financing solution. That hasn’t been part of our business model. We haven’t had to do that. So this is really a new activity in itself just matching the right resources to work with them and with the banks. And when we do do this, we do see that the projects move forward.”

Thin-film makers have another reason to offer whatever help they can to customers. Their crystalline-silicon rivals have been cutting prices to spur sales, and analysts worry they may fall so far as to blunt thin film’s key advantage: its low cost. Morelli said its prices will fall in the low single digits, thanks in part to its work in cutting its own costs.

In the longer term, Morelli’s vision is brighter. Demand for its products is strong in Italy and France, and says he expects the U.S. solar market to be one of the fastest growing in the world during the next five years. The company drew only 18 percent of its revenue last quarter from the U.S., but utility spending and federal stimulus may boost that.

In the near term, though, the outlook is cloudy — evidenced by the company’s guidance. Energy Conversion sees revenue between $95 million and $110 million this quarter, well below analysts’ consensus forecast of $118.5 million.

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Last year Revision3 reported it had delivered 25 million videos (and 103 million “clips”). The startup later revised that number to 19 million, it told us today, as it became more stringent about its statistics. Now Revision3 counts only a full episode play or download, as opposed to a stream simply being started. Most other video sites are far more liberal. Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback has become a militant advocate of stricter viewership numbers (see his recent blog post titled “The Lies Must Stop“).

While that’s an admirable cause, it doesn’t make Revision3 — which was forced to cut some of its programming and staff in Oct. 2007 — look that good compared to its competitors. Next New Networks claimed 300 million views in 2008. Yesterday Break reported 35 million plays of its branded content productions “in the past few months.”

Revision3 does tend to run longer content than its competitors. To account for that, it also now reports the number of views for each “segment” of a show — for instance, Diggnation is divided into six segments. The network had 129 million segment views in ’08. All told, that amounts to nearly 1 billion minutes of content watched.

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