Another Government-Subsidized Solar Company Goes Bankrupt

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--On Monday, Solar Trust of America (Oakland, California) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, possibly crippling one of the nation's largest solar power projects--the 1,000-megawatt (MW) multiphase Blythe Solar Park near Blythe, California.

The solar photovoltaic power project originally was conceived as a 1,000-MW concentrating solar power (CSP) project consisting of Solar Millennium AG (Erlangen, Germany) HelioTrough parabolic solar technology with four 250-megawatt steam-turbine generators, before Solar Millennium AG filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2011.

Pointing to the dropping prices of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, the project was then reconfigured to be a 500-MW PV plant after being handed over to the Solar Millennium's U.S.-based subsidiary Solar Trust of America, which was trying to acquire more capital in a sale with Solarhybrid AG, another Germany-based solar developer, when Solarhybrid AG also filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Blythe Solar Park project won $2.1 billion dollars of conditional loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy, and unless the project moves forward with new investment and completion, the loan guarantees could be also be stopped.

Solar Millennium AG acquired Kiewit Power Engineers (Lenexa, Kansas) and started some site work before last year's bankruptcy proceedings. The project was still being developed as a CSP configuration, but halted construction. After being reconfigured to PV, the project was proceeding with site work, until bankruptcy proceedings were filed on Monday. Solar Trust of America and several affiliates list $10 million in assets and between $50 million and $100 million of liabilities.

Another German company, Q-Cells SE (Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany), a manufacturer of solar panels, also filed for bankruptcy after abandoning a debt restructuring plan. Q-Cells was once one of the world's largest solar panel companies but had been having financial difficulties from competition with lower-priced solar panels manufactured in China.

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