Quarterly earnings numbers are out for many publicly traded solar manufacturing companies, and you’d be forgiven for thinking the solar industry is in trouble. Why? Because the global price of solar panels is falling, putting pressure on profit margins, and that spells bad news for manufacturers’ earnings.

This is a reminder that what is good for a market isn’t necessarily good for all market participants. Declining prices mean only those with the lowest manufacturing costs (and business models that work on much thinner margins) will earn the profits necessary to survive. Those that can’t will fall by the wayside.

The recent news that Solyndra, a California-based solar tech firm that had received a $535 million federal loan, is laying off