Solar PV manufacturing – consolidation continues..

Another day, another PV company folds up. MiaSolé, which was considered a promising CIGS PV manufacturer, has been bought by China’s Hanergy last week. Interestingly, Hanergy also bought Solibro, another CIGS manufacturer, from Q-cells. According to GTM research, this move by Hanergy is very curious because there are hardly any synergies between these two companies. MiaSolé and Solibro uses different production technologies and the strategic intent of Hanergy is not very clear at this point. The article by GTM article suggests that the investors had taken a huge haircut on the deal.
Ever since the bankruptcy filing of Solyndra in August 2011, PV manufacturers have been falling like nine pins. Some of the other big companies that went for restructuring include Q-Cells, Abound, Solon, etc, there are were also a number of smaller companies that went out of business or were acquired by bigger companies. As we at RESolve started to dig a bit deeper, we were surprised to find that at least 26 companies went into consolidation mode in the last 13 months since the Solyndra bankruptcy. A majority of companies in that list are thin film companies, which points to the fact that the crash in crystalline silicon prices is taking its toll on the thin film PV segment.
The list is given below. This list is by no means exhaustive, and chances are, there are more such smaller companies and unlisted companies that faded into the oblivion, unnoticed.
(Note 1 – The updated table as of 20 March 2013 with another 24 companies can be accessed here ).

	Company	Country	Technology	Type of consolidation	Timeline
1	Solyndra	USA	CIGS	Bankruptcy	Aug-11
2	Evergreen	USA	c-Si	Bankruptcy	Aug-11
3	SpectraWatt(Intel Spinoff)	USA	c-Si	Bankruptcy – Sold to Canadian Solar	Aug-11
4	Helio volt	USA	CIGS	Stake sale to SK Group, Korea	Sep-11
5	Stirling energy systems	USA	CSP(dish)	Bankruptcy	Sep-11
6	First Solar	USA	CIGS	Abandoned	Dec-11
7	Solar millenium	Germany	CSP	Bankruptcy	Dec-11
8	Solon	Germany	c-Si	Bankruptcy – Bought by Microsol, UAE	Dec-11
9	Unisolar(EDS)	USA	a-Si	Bankruptcy	Feb-12
10	Odersun	Germany	CIS	Insolvency	Mar-12
11	Pramac	Switzerland	a-Si	Insolvency	May-12
12	Inventux	Germany	a-Si	Insolvency	May-12
13	Auria	Taiwan	a-Si	Delisting from Taiwan Stock Exchange	May-12
14	Soltecture	Germany	CIGS	Insolvency	May-12
15	Day4Energy	Canada	c-Si	Delisting from Toronto Stock exchange	May-12
16	Sovello	Germany	c-Si	Insolvency	May-12
17	Solibro	Germany	CIGS	Acquired by Hanergy	Jun-12
18	Konarka	USA	Organic PV	Bankruptcy	Jun-12
19	Scheuten Solar	Germany	BIPV	Acquired by Aikosolar, China	Jun-12
20	Novasolar	USA	a-Si	Bankruptcy – Bought over by a Chinese firm – Hubei Science & Technology Investment Ltd.	Jun-12
21	Schott	Germany	c-Si	Discontinue c-Si production	Jun-12
22	Abound Solar	USA	CIGS	Bankruptcy	Jul-12
23	GE	USA	Cd-Te	Expansion put on hold	Jul-12
24	Q-Cells	Germany	c-Si	Acquired by Hanhwa	Aug-12
25	Miasole	Germany	CIGS	Acquired by Hanergy	Oct-12
26	Moser Baer	India	a-Si	Shut down	–

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M Ramesh

October 9, 2012 at 12:09 pm

Thank you, Madhavan, for the list of the dead. You might want to add 3S Soluciones of Spain and Schuco of Germany to this list. And put Sharp and Centrotherm under watch. Amazing how the Chinese are able to massacre the competition!

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