This year’s largest solar event in North America dawned over a landscape clouded by the Solyndra failure, weak earnings for many solar players and mounting tensions about price drops for polysilicon and finished panels. Yet the mood at the conference was upbeat, and the symbolic change of venue to Dallas, Texas, highlighted that the North American market has grown beyond California and is gaining momentum from coast to coast.

After spending three days at the conference I was surprised at the low level of discussion about Solyndra and the increasing focus on pricing. It was the question on the minds and lips of every reporter in Dallas last week.

Most people I spoke with felt the Solyndra story, while bad news and a sign of increased pressure on solar companies to manage costs, didn’t define their company or the industry at large. Based on a very limited sample, I would say we have moved on in a sense.

What dominated the conversation at this year’s event was cost and price. This is a time when solar companies are looking themselves in the mirror to ensure they are set up for success in a market where price changes can be drastic and hard to predict. A few companies have banded together to fight what they perceive as an external barrier: unfair trading practices. Late last week, SolarWorld along with six other U.S. solar-panel manufacturers who remain anonymous banded together to file a dumping complaint against China.

Here is the distillation as reported by Dow Jones. A quick summary:

--SolarWorld and six other U.S. solar-panel manufacturers allege Chinese manufacturers have been dumping products in U.S. market at prices below cost of production

--SolarWorld petitions the U.S. Department of Commerce and International Trade Commission for duties on Chinese solar panels made with silicon

--Complaint accuses Chinese national and local governments of providing unfair subsidies to solar-product manufacturers

According to Reuters, solar companies are wary of any external action that might stifle growth in the global solar industry.

Other solar companies are looking inward at what they can do to remain competitive in a rapidly maturing market. Q-Cells North America [disclosure, client] released a white paper exploring how predictability, expressed in a single metric known as the performance ratio, is emerging as a key requirement for power plant owners and investors.

There’s never a dull moment in the solar industry. In the coming year solar companies will be taking a hard look at what energy customers need, and what kinds of solar solutions can fulfill those needs far into the future.