Recom subsidiary Sillia closes plant in France and moves to Italy

From pv magazine France

Recom's French subsidiary, the PV module manufacturer Recom Sillia was placed in liquidation on April 12, following a decision by the Saint-Brieuc commercial court.

According to Recom, the parent company of Recom Sillia, the Sillia business was acquired out of bankruptcy by Recom-Italia, another Recom subsidiary based in Italy, in 2017. At the time the annual module production capacity was only 50 MW. According to Recom, the manufacturer provided 30 million Euros in financing to Recom Sillia, increasing the production capacity tenfold to 500 MW.

The 32 employees of Recom Sillia, who already received their letter of dismissal, could benefit from a procedure “allowing them accelerated relocation”, according to the local press.

Prior to Recom's acquisition of Sillia VL in July 2017, Sillia had acquired the solar module factory in Lannion from German conglomerate Bosch in 2014. According to Recom, with the ramp-up to 500 MW, Recom Sillia became Europe’s only and largest Bloomberg tier 1 solar module producer.

“The ongoing disappointment and frustration with the French government's failure to enforce CRE tender regulations, coupled with their indifference towards the challenges facing the renewables industry in France, have led Recom management to decide to leave France”, writes the spokesperson. “Currently, there is a pending court claim at the Rennes commercial tribunal initiated by Recom-Sillia against the French Ministry of Transition for a claim of 45 Million Euro.”

According to the spokesperson the module production will be relocated from France to its Italian plant in Padua, without specifying the capacity involved. “Recom will soon complete the technological upgrade of the facility and resume the module production operations from its cell-producing Italian facility in Padua”, writes the spokesperson.

“In total, Europe has officially lost 3 GW of module production capacity since the fall, due to bankruptcies or cessation of production,” said the European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC).

The council listed several companies that have had difficulties in recent months in the European market: Switzerland's Flisom (55 MW), Austria's Energetica (250 MW), Netherlands' Exasun (125 MW), Germany's Envelon (80 MW), Meyer Burger (1,400 MW) and Solarwatt (300 MW), as well as France-based Systovi (80 MW).

“It's not good to be right in our predictions when it comes to this type of news, and we at ESMC are of course disappointed that policymakers have not acted on our warnings and our suggestions for implementing emergency measures,” it added.

The article was corrected Saturday May 11 at 1 pm and Sunday May 12 at 2:30 pm: We have included a statement from the parent company Recom and made a more precise distinction between the subsidiary and the parent company.