Poor Chinese Farmers Exploited by the Solar Scam

The alternative energy scam in a nutshell. While this story has more nefarious characters, many alternative projects are money losing disasters the moment the market wakes up to the dearth of real capital and imposes market interest rates again. Many bosses will suddenly disappear when the music stops.

iFeng: 困在光伏里的农民：免费的阳光为何让我欠了银行20万？

His initial knowledge of photovoltaic power generation came from news reports on the Internet and on TV. He felt that this thing was high-tech and promising, so when the salesman used the A4 paper-sized contract terms, Li Guimin didn't look at it. Under the instructions of the salesperson, he signed the name in the blank space. .

The next day, the sales staff and people from the credit union came to Li Guimin's house and took out a loan of 200,000 yuan.

It was not until half a year later that Li Guimin realized that the situation was not good. The salesman said that "photovoltaic panel power generation is sufficient to cover loan interest", "even when the weather is bad, the power generation is insufficient, the company can compensate for the price difference" and other promises will not be honored after a few months of fulfillment, because The boss of the photovoltaic company ran away. The salesman who came to the door at the time was from a neighboring village, and now I can’t find it. I only heard that he went to Shanghai.

Li Guimin can only look at the APP on his mobile phone in a hurry. On this APP, there is a jumping arrow showing the amount of power generation, but Li Guimin found that the income generated by the monthly power generation could not repay the loan at all, and had to transfer money from his other bank accounts to repay. "In the first year of installation, the electricity bill was not enough to repay the loan interest, so I paid 2,000 yuan in reverse; in the second year, I paid 4,000 yuan in reverse. It is estimated that at least 5,000 yuan will be inverted this year."

In addition to the repayment of the principal and interest of the loan, there are also miscellaneous maintenance costs, which cost thousands of dollars a year. Li Guimin calculated an economic account for Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm": photovoltaic panels need to be cleaned and repaired. Each cleaning cost is 500 yuan, and the repair fee is 200 yuan, which does not include material costs. During the three months of each summer season, he would find someone to repair it almost every month.

Spoiler:

Whether it is the harsh details hidden in the contract or the bubble-filled "data" of the photovoltaic company, the villagers who have installed photovoltaic panels on the roof have realized a truth: they just give the photovoltaic company free work. The real profit is those photovoltaic companies.