Photovoltaic news and pv jobs

Solon is bankrupt – again?

14. December 2011 By:  Karl-Heniz Remmers

Solon has filed for bankruptcy and, unfortunately, it is not a false alarm this time. The company had been declared dead often enough in the past, but it somehow managed to come back time and again, which is why many had hoped that Solon would carry on this time as well, and that may well be the case with insolvency.

Unfortunately, because anyone who has worked in the industry for as long a time as I have, a lot more is associated with the name Solon than just a module brand. On the contrary, for me, it represents the rebirth of the solar module production in Germany that had already been declared defunct in the mid-nineties, and a company that always aimed to be at the technological cutting edge, combined with the will to make very good products.

Solon has remained innovative to this very day, and just recently worked on new products while being awarded the best test result by far by PV+Test, from German technical inspection agency TÜV Rheinland and Solarpraxis, for its series manufactured solar module.

Yet in its day-to-day work throughout all the years, Solon was not able to optimize costs and processes in a measure sufficient enough to keep pace with a market marked by very rapid development and stiff competition. I’ll spare myself any discussion about management errors and the present political climate in Germany and choose instead to just look ahead.

What is interesting about Solon, and is capable of pointing the way to a future after failure?

The brand name Solon is well-known in the industry and stands for solid products throughout Europe. The project developers at the company and the technical basis of it are in order. There are numerous Solon plants and projects throughout Europe. This is something for a strategic investor for whom, however, the task remains to quickly reconcile quality and costs.

Not only as a Berliner and conscious of the fact that anything written here is more emotional than objective, I’ll nevertheless cross my fingers for the success of such a process.