The German subsidiaries of photo voltaic panel know-how firm Meyer Burger have filed for insolvency proceedings, sometimes the precursor to chapter.
The Swiss firm abruptly closed its Arizona solar panel assembly facility final week, shedding 282 American staff. Meyer Burger said in its insolvency announcement that its American subsidiary will “stay in existence as an organization” regardless of shedding each worker. Meyer Burger’s Swiss subsidiary, which employs 60 individuals in Thun, will stay in operation.
The 2 German websites are actually closed. A cell manufacturing facility in Thalheim employed 331 individuals, and an R&D facility in Hohenstein-Ernstthal employed 289 individuals.
“Intensive efforts have been made to maintain the websites open through the ongoing restructuring negotiations,” Meyer Burger said in a press launch. “These efforts haven’t been profitable thus far and can now be continued as a part of the proceedings along with a provisional insolvency administrator to be appointed by the courtroom.”
Meyer Burger began within the photo voltaic business as a producing gear developer for heterojunction technology (HJT) photo voltaic panels. Its “SmartWire” designs have been licensed by different manufacturing names, together with REC. In 2020, the corporate ventured into direct photo voltaic cell and panel manufacturing and gross sales, first opening manufacturing services in Germany earlier than trying on the U.S. market. Meyer Burger’s 1.5-GW photo voltaic panel manufacturing facility in Goodyear, Arizona, opened in 2024 and was the one HJT producer in america.
What helped get Meyer Burger’s U.S. manufacturing facility off the bottom was a 5-GW supply agreement with large-scale developer D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI). DESRI terminated its provide settlement in November 2024, and Meyer Burger has been in a monetary scramble ever since.
