Trina Solar (TSL), a Chinese manufacturer of photovoltaic module, posted its third quarter earnings of 2014 on Monday.

The total shipments in the third-quarter at Trina came in at 1.06GW, at the low-end of its guidance of 1.06-1.2GW. Trina reported $616.8 million revenue, lower than the consensus $646 million. Earnings per share were $0.14, also below the $0.15 expected.

The miss in earning was mainly due to a foreign exchange loss, without which Trina would have beaten the street with $0.34 EPS.

The company's CEO, Jifan Gao mentioned that despite foreign exchange fluctuations and weaker demand in Europe, they continue to meet or exceed our financial and performance targets.

Foutlook is more problematic. Trina now expects to ship 1.05-1.1GW in the fourth-quarter and 3.61-3.66GW for the year 2014, versus the previous full-year guidance of 3.6-3.8GW. Trina canceled a 130MW project in China's Inner Mongolia province.

According to Raymond James's Pavel Molchanov, who has a Neutral on Trina and has been a solar bear, the biggest problem with Chinese solar companies is that while the macro policy is favorable, Beijing clearly wants more clean energy and less pollution.

Since Trina is turning more towards the China market after the US raised import tariffs on Chinese and Taiwanese companies, they are more likely to see more operational risk at the company.

Concerning the US Commerce Department's tightening of the tariff policy on Chinese modules, access to the US market has naturally been restrained, even though Trina faces the lowest tariffs among Chinese peers.

Now, Trina is clearly focused for the time being on Chinese opportunities, with three projects in play over the next few quarters.

This includes a 300 MW project in Yunnan province via the recent 90% acquisition of Yunnan Metallurgical, with construction set to start in 1Q15. The expected connection to the grid in 1Q15 of a 120 MW project in Jiangsu province and a 100 MW project in Gansu province, with construction set to start in 2015.