Ternienergia announces lay-off plan

Italian solar and renewable energy developer Ternienergia Spa, a subsdiary of the group Italeaf, has announced a plan to reduce workforce at its headquarters in Nera Montoro, Terni, central Italy.

The company said that the plan will affect 66 employees of the division for photovoltaic systems and energy saving, all currently operating at the Nera Montoro industrial site.

Ternienergia said the move was to the high fixed costs of the site and to both commercial and logistic problems, structural and ineliminable.

“Of this resolution of the board, the trade unions (as well as other relevant stakeholders) have been regularly  informed today, and the company will initiate in the coming weeks a discussion, which is hoped to be constructive, with the same trade unions,” Ternienergia added in its statement.

In the first quarter of this year, the company saw its revenue decline 4.59% year-on-year to €29.9 million, but it was still able to post a positive net result of €0.2 million. This, however, was down 60% from €0.6 million a year earlier.

Ternienergia, which has recently started the construction of a 10 MW PV plant in Tunisia, has installed to date solar power plants with a combined capacity of 274 MW.A large portion of this capacity comes from two large-scale PV projects it developed in South Africa.

A first project, an 82.5 MW solar power plant in Paleisheuwe, was completed in April 2016. The second project, which was connected to the South African grid in June 2016, is a 66 MW solar park in Tom Burke. The two projects, which are both owned by Italian power utility Enel, represented a combined investment of approximately $197 million.