The solar technology industry may report a stronger-than-expected third quarter but could face disappointment in subsequent quarters, warns Hapoalim Securities analyst Gordon Johnson in a note to clients today. Johnson says that his checks suggest demand for photovoltaic modules in Germany has been better than expected, raising the prospect that solar tech makers could demonstrate better sales growth and margins than expiated when they report the September quarter.

The longer term quality of the industry’s growth may be questionable, however. When growth slows for industries, notes Johnson, the participants often resort to what he calls financial chicanery to hide the slowdown, and that’s what he expects from solar tech companies.

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It’s a nice day for the solar sector, which is getting a boost from a flurry of analyst comments following the recently completed Intersolar trade show in Munich.

“By the end of Intersolar, we sensed growing, albeit cautious optimism,” Cowen’s Robert Stone writes in a research note this morning. “ASPs are still uncertain, but volumes should definitely be up in Q2/Q3, and deals were starting to close.” He says that despite a strong rebound in the stocks since early March, the group “remains mostly undervalued.”

Likewise, Thomas Weisel Partners analyst Jeff Osborne writes that “it appears demand trends in Europe are accelerating with many companies indicating a 40-100 percent increase in units in Q2 sequentially, led mainly by Germany with some credit easing in Mediterranean countries as well.”

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Applied Materials (AMAT) is likely to provide mixed news when it reports results after the close tomorrow for its fiscal second quarter ended April. The Street is looking for revenue of $904 million and a loss of 10 cents a share; the thinking on the July quarter is $923 million and a loss of 8 cents.

Analysts seem to agree that there has been a pick up in demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment from the foundry sector. But the company’s solar business is struggling.

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The Street is having increasing doubts about whether the solar equipment business at Applied Materials (AMAT) can ever live up to the unit’s once lofty expectations. Applied late yesterday disclosed that an unspecified company that had been planned to buy $1.9 billion of thin-film solar manufacturing gear from Applied has revised its intentions and now will buy just $250 million worth of equipment. It is apparently an open secret on the Street that the company involved in the deal is Best Solar, a company in China founded by the same guy who launched LDK Solar.

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Filthy coal-fired power plants spew carbon into the air. A mish-mash of 9,200 generators streams vital electrons along 300,000 miles of aging, inefficient transmission lines and one untrimmed tree in the wrong place could plunge a quarter of the country into darkness. This is our electric grid. A whopping 40 percent of all the energy used in the U.S.–be it oil, gas, wind, or solar–is converted into electrons that travel over these wires. Any attempt at energy reform must begin here.

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Gabelli & Co. analyst John Segrich today launched coverage of Suntech Power (STP) with a Sell rating and a $5 target price.

Segrich notes that Suntech has emerged as the largest Chinese solar module manufacturer; but he says the company’s stock is likely to underperform as the rapid deterioration of pricing and demand in the solar market continues amid the sharp economic downturn.

For 2009, Segrich expects the company to produce $1.95 billion in revenue, shipping 690 MW, below the company’s forecast of 800 MW or more. Segrich notes that the company’s initial response to the slowdown was to reduce volumes–but he thinks the company will drop prices aggressively in Q1 to increase utilization and maintain market share. Segrich forecasts negative free cash flow for the year of $530 million, with significantly depressed margins, as prices sink.

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Suntech (STP) shares are trading dramatically lower–and dragging down the rest of the already battered solar sector–on an extremely weak outlook for Q4 results.

For Q3, the company posted revenue of $594.4 million and non-GAAP profits of 36 cents a share. That beat the Street estimate of $571.7 million at the top line, but fell short of Street estimate of 42 cents at the bottom line.

But what really matters here is the outlook. For Q4, the company now sees revenue of $345 million to $360 million, dramatically below the Street consensus of $614.78 million. Suntech said it expects to be “marginally” profitable or break even in the quarter. The Street had expected 43 cents.

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Shares of solar power technology provider Trina Solar (TSL) fell as much as 5.4 percent today after the company this morning announced sales and profit that missed estimates despite a big jump in sales and profit, year-over-year. The selloff may be overdone, opined Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov in a chat I had with him by phone this afternoon.

Trina sales of $204.2 million nearly tripled from the prior-year period, beating the average $202.5 million estimate, while profit of 68 cents was short of an 81-cent estimate, in large part because of a $6.1 million foreign exchange loss owing to the rise in the Chinese Renminbi against the dollar.

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It’s difficult for us layfolk to gauge the real implications of breakthrough research announcements, but when the scientists start throwing around words like “nirvana,” it does catch the attention. And from the description of the latest work of MIT’s Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy, it’s easy to get excited. Nocera and team say they’ve come up with an answer to the dark side of solar energy–the difficulty of storing it for when the sun isn’t shining.

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As companies like Intel Corp., IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have made moves in the solar power space, many have wondered if these high-tech heavyweights could use either their manufacturing or intellectual muscle to push down costs and thereby lower the price of solar power. Perhaps eventually, but not quite so fast.

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One of oldest forms of energy used by humans–sunlight concentrated by mirrors–is poised to make an astonishing comeback. I believe it will be the most important form of carbon-free power in the 21st century. That’s because it’s the only form of clean electricity that can meet all the demanding requirements of this century.

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Israel’s growing solar industry, early moves on electric vehicles (the home to Shai Agassi’s first electric-vehicle infrastructure project) and recently funded water start-ups are making the state one of the front-runners of the cleantech revolution. And Israel keeps churning out new solar start-ups; on Monday a solar photovoltaic company called Pythagoras Solar said it had raised a Series A round of $10 million.

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British Telecom made a major bet on renewable energy last October, saying it planned to invest close to half a billion dollars in wind farms to meet 25% of the company’s U.K. power needs by 2016. Now BT’s clean energy goals are crossing the pond, to its U.S. headquarters. The company said today at a press conference in El Segundo, Calif., where company executives, Prince Andrew Duke of York and the mayor of El Segundo spoke, that it’s building a 500-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system for its North American HQ.

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