Evergreen Solar

Last updated
Evergreen Solar, Inc.
Company type Public
Industry Renewable Energy
Founded1994;30 years ago (1994)
Headquarters Marlborough, Massachusetts; United States
ProductsSolar Cells
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$112 Million (FY 2008) [1]
Decrease2.svg US$-75.0 Million (FY 2008) [1]
Decrease2.svg US$-84.9 Million (FY 2008) [1]
Total assets Increase2.svg US$1.00 Billion (FY 2008) [2]
Total equity Increase2.svg US$520 Million (FY 2008) [2]
Website www.evergreensolar.com

Evergreen Solar, Inc. was "a fully integrated manufacturer of solar panels producing wafers, cells and panels." [3] On August 15, 2011, the company filed for Chapter 11 reorganization with the intent of selling its assets. [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Evergreen Solar was founded in 1994 and until bankruptcy traded on the NASDAQ exchange. [7] Evergreen produced proprietary "String Ribbon" solar cells for the photovoltaics industry. The company announced plans to close its main American factory and lay off the 800 workers there by March 2011. Evergreen is shifting production to China where it has a joint venture. The company received $21 million from Massachusetts, covering part of the cost of the Devens factory. [8]

Company

Evergreen operated out of Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA and in 2007 announced plans to expand annual production from 17MW to 100MW.

In 2006 Evergreen, Q-Cells and Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) formed EverQ (later renamed Sovello), a joint venture to open a factory in Thalheim, Germany which was expected to produce 300 MW of photovoltaic modules by 2010. Sovello intended to make a public stock offering, but instead was acquired by Ventizz Capital Partners.

Evergreen's factory in Devens, MA opened in mid-2008 and expected to be producing at a rate of 80 megawatts per year by early 2009. A second phase was scheduled to begin ramping in early 2009 to produce an additional 80 megawatts per year. [9] CEO Richard Feldt had said the company was eyeing expansion in Asia as well. [10]

CEO Michael El-Hillow (appointed September 2010) closed the factory at Devens, MA at the end of March, 2011, shifting production to China. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suntech Power</span> Chinese producer of solar panels

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Chinese producer of solar panels, with 2,000 MW (2,700,000 hp) of annual production capacity by the end of 2011. It is headquartered in Wuxi, Jiangsu. Shunfeng International Clean Energy Limited, a HKSE listed renewable energy investment and Independent Power Producer company, acquired Suntech in 2014 following Suntech's bankruptcy in 2013. With offices or production facilities in every major market, Suntech has delivered more than 13,000,000 solar panels to thousands of companies in more than 80 countries around the world. As the center for the company's global operations, Suntech headquarters, in Wuxi, China, features the world's largest building integrated solar facade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renewable Energy Corporation</span> Solar power company in Singapore

The Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) is a solar power company with headquarters in Singapore. REC produces silicon materials for photovoltaics (PV) applications and multicrystalline wafers, as well as solar cells and modules. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance New Solar Energy Limited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar shingle</span> Type of solar panel

Solar shingles, also called photovoltaic shingles, are solar panels designed to look like and function as conventional roofing materials, such as asphalt shingle or slate, while also producing electricity. Solar shingles are a type of solar energy solution known as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV).

Konarka Technologies, Inc. was a solar energy company based in Lowell, Massachusetts, founded in 2001 as a spin-off from University of Massachusetts Lowell. In late May 2012, the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and laid off its approximately 80-member staff. The company’s operations have ceased and a trustee is tasked with liquidating the company’s assets for the benefit of creditors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in Spain</span>

Spain is one of the first countries to deploy large-scale solar photovoltaics, and is the world leader in concentrated solar power (CSP) production.

SunPower Corporation is an American provider of photovoltaic solar energy generation systems and battery energy storage products, primarily for residential customers. The company, headquartered in San Jose, California, was founded in 1985 by Richard Swanson, an electrical engineering professor from Stanford University. Cypress Semiconductor bought a majority interest in the company in 2002, growing it quickly until SunPower went public in 2005. TotalEnergies, a French energy and oil company purchased a controlling interest in SunPower for US$1.37 billion in 2011 but disengaged progressively until reaching 32.5%.

For solar power, South Asia has the ideal combination of both high solar insolation and a high density of potential customers.

MiaSolé is an American solar energy company selling copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film photovoltaic products. MiaSolé's manufacturing process lays CIGS on a flexible stainless steel substrate. MiaSolé produces all layers of photovoltaic material in a continuous sputtering process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in China</span>

China is the largest market in the world for both photovoltaics and solar thermal energy. China's photovoltaic industry began by making panels for satellites, and transitioned to the manufacture of domestic panels in the late 1990s. After substantial government incentives were introduced in 2011, China's solar power market grew dramatically: the country became the world's leading installer of photovoltaics in 2013. China surpassed Germany as the world's largest producer of photovoltaic energy in 2015, and became the first country to have over 100 GW of total installed photovoltaic capacity in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in the United States</span>

Solar power includes solar farms as well as local distributed generation, mostly on rooftops and increasingly from community solar arrays. In 2023, utility-scale solar power generated 164.5 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 3.9% of electricity in the United States. Total solar generation that year, including estimated small-scale photovoltaic generation, was 238 TWh.

SunEdison, Inc. is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high-purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, the company was sold by Monsanto in 1989.

Global Solar Energy is a US-based manufacturer of CIGS solar cells, a thin-film based photovoltaic technology, with manufacturing operations in Tucson, Arizona, United States, and Berlin, Germany. In 2013, it was bought by Chinese renewable energy company Hanergy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Topaz Solar Farm</span> Photovoltaic power station in San Luis Obispo County, California

Topaz Solar Farm is a 550 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station in San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Construction on the project began in November 2011 and ended in November 2014. It is one of the world's largest solar farms. The $2.5 billion project includes 9 million CdTe photovoltaic modules based on thin-film technology, manufactured by U.S. company First Solar. The company also built, operates and maintains the project for MidAmerican Renewables, a Berkshire Hathaway company. Pacific Gas and Electric will buy the electricity under a 25-year power purchase agreement. According to First Solar, it created about 400 construction jobs.

Solyndra was a manufacturer of cylindrical panels of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells based in Fremont, California. Heavily promoted as a leader in the sustainable energy sector for its unusual technology, Solyndra was not able to compete with conventional solar panel manufacturers of crystalline silicon. In 2009, the Obama administration co-signed $535 million loans to Solyndra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Growth of photovoltaics</span> Worldwide growth of photovoltaics

Between 1992 and 2023, the worldwide usage of photovoltaics (PV) increased exponentially. During this period, it evolved from a niche market of small-scale applications to a mainstream electricity source. From 2016-2022 it has seen an annual capacity and production growth rate of around 26%- doubling approximately every three years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blythe Mesa Solar Power Project</span> Linux solar power

The Blythe Mesa Solar Power Project, also known as the Blythe Solar Energy Center, is a 235 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power plant near the city of Blythe in Riverside County, California. It occupies about 2,000 acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management in the Mojave Desert. The construction uses CdTe thin film panels from the U.S. firm First Solar, and the majority of the output is being sold to Kaiser Permanente and Southern California Edison under 20-year power purchase agreements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in Saudi Arabia</span>

Solar power in Saudi Arabia has become more important to the country as oil prices have risen. In 2021, 60.89% of energy consumed was produced by burning oil. The Saudi agency in charge of developing the nations renewable energy sector, Ka-care, announced in May 2012 that the nation would install 41 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity by 2032. It was projected to be composed of 25 GW of solar thermal, and 16 GW of photovoltaics. At the time of this announcement, Saudi Arabia had only 0.003 gigawatts of installed solar energy capacity. A total of 54 GW was expected by 2032, and 24 GW was expected in 2020, which was never reached. 1,100 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaics and 900 megawatts of concentrated solar thermal (CSP) was expected to be completed by early 2013. Also in 2013, solar power in Saudi Arabia had achieved grid parity and was able to produce electricity at costs comparable to conventional sources.

Hanwha Qcells is a major manufacturer of photovoltaic cells. The company is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, after being founded in 1999 in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany, where the company still has its engineering offices. Qcells was purchased out of bankruptcy in August 2012 by the Hanwha Group, a South Korean business conglomerate. Qcells now operates as a subsidiary of Hanwha Solutions, the group's energy and petrochemical company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comanche Solar Project</span> Photovoltaic power station

The Comanche Solar Project is a 120 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station near the city of Pueblo, Colorado. It became the largest solar facility in the state when it came online in late 2016. The electricity is being sold to Public Service of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, under a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA). Xcel determined through an open bid process that the PPA's terms were competitive with natural gas.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Evergreen Solar (ESLR) annual SEC income statement filing via Wikinvest
  2. 1 2 Evergreen Solar (ESLR) annual SEC balance sheet filing via Wikinvest
  3. "Unbiased Home Solar Panel Advice - National Council for Solar Growth". evergreensolar.com. Archived from the original on 2017-01-12. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
  4. Greentechmedia. "Evergreen Files for Chapter 11 Plans to Sell Assets."
  5. "Evergreen Solar Seeks Bankruptcy With Plans to Sell Itself". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
  6. "Technology | Boston Herald". www.bostonherald.com. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
  7. "Evergreen Solar Key Facts". Archived from the original on 2007-06-26. Retrieved 2007-05-29.
  8. Bradsher, Keith (15 January 2011). "Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
  9. "IR Services | Morningstar U.S". ccbn.10kwizard.com. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  10. Evergreen Might expand to Asia
  11. Bradsher, Keith (15 January 2011). "Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-07-20.