Tuesday 26 November 2013

The twilight of Germany's solar panel industry: Loss making Solarworld buys Bosch's loss making solar production unit

One by one, German solar panel manufacturers disappear, either by filing for insolvency - like former heavyweights Q-Cells, Solon and Conergy - or by hopelessly trying to get a new lease of life through merging.

Today German engineering and electronics company Bosch confirmed that it has sold its solar panel production to the Bonn based Solarworld after loosing 2.4 billion euros ($3.23 billion).

Congratulations to Boss. However, the 800 employees at the company's solar cell production unit and module facility in Arnstadt in the eastern German state of Thuringia have few reasons to celebrate. The future of their new employer, with production facilities both in Germany and the US (Hillsboro, Oregon) is hanging in the balance.

Solarworld lost 60,2 million euros and its volume of sales dropped 25% during the first nine months of this year. It is highly questionable that the acquisition of another loss making solar panel company will prevent Solarworld from sharing the same fate as so many of the other German solar giants.

The blind leading the blind is usually not a winning formula ...

PS

One should not forget that that all these solar bankruptcies and crisis are a result of Angela Merkel's failed energy transition policy. Without the promise of huge subsidies - which now are not high enough to stave off Chinese and other competitors - these failed companies would not have been founded ...

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