A spokesperson for the states ministry of economy has confirmed that the thin film photovoltaic module manufacturer will have to pay back the funds that it received from the state of Brandenburg, which are said to total over 5 million.
At the end of April, First Solar announced that it would significantly reduce its operations in Germany, due to the "deteriorating" market conditions in Europe, thus affecting around 1,200 employees. Specifically, the U.S.-based company said it would close its manufacturing operations in Frankfurt (Oder) by the end of this year.
First Solar officially opened its second German plant at the start of last November. The move saw the company doubling its production capacity in Frankfurt (Oder) from 250 MW to 500 MW. However, in February, it was forced to announce production reductions of 50 percent.
In the original funding agreements, various clauses were included, which, among others, detailed several years of job security for its employees. Since First Solar has not met all of the funding criteria, the money will now have to be returned to the state. The news was officially announced last week.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.