Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale

Steven Lake
Steven Lake Solar Expert Posts: 402 ✭✭
in General Solar Power Topics #1
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view.bg?articleid=1358998&pos=breaking

That can't be a good thing. On a side note, with recent developments, geothermal is becoming just as cheap as solar per watt over a certain number regardless where you set it up. Yep, even in non-geothermal areas. :D
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  • Blackcherry04
    Blackcherry04 Solar Expert Posts: 2,490 ✭✭✭
    #2
    Re: Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale

    What a Joke. all they did was set up that factory as a R & D facility and took Tax money and left for China laughing all the way to the bank.

    Those that are old enough remember Ross Perot, it's the " Giant Sucking Sound ". Parity will occur when the American worker makes the same wage as the workers of our competitors.
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  • Urbandialect
    Urbandialect Solar Expert Posts: 107 ✭✭✭✭
    #3
    Re: Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale

    I hope this means cheapers products for us as they dismantle that company, Do they make solar cells or do they make panels? if they make panels then that's what they get for selling them over priced panels. :)
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  • Solar Guppy
    Solar Guppy Solar Expert Posts: 1,989 ✭✭✭
    #4
    Re: Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale

    The company isn't being dismantled and is continuing just like all the other company's that walk form there debt in BK. They are selling off unused assets in mass, but that's about it.

    Most of Evergreens production is in Germany and isn't effected by this paper shuffle
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  • jeffkruse
    jeffkruse Solar Expert Posts: 205 ✭✭✭
    #5
    Re: Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale
    Urbandialect wrote: »
    I hope this means cheapers products for us as they dismantle that company, Do they make solar cells or do they make panels? if they make panels then that's what they get for selling them over priced panels. :)

    What are you talking about? They make great panels and the price is very low. Obviously the panels weren’t overpriced otherwise they wouldn’t be going bankrupt. I am very happy with the price I paid and the performance of their panels.
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  • Urbandialect
    Urbandialect Solar Expert Posts: 107 ✭✭✭✭
    #6
    Re: Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale
    jeffkruse wrote: »
    What are you talking about? They make great panels and the price is very low. Obviously the panels weren’t overpriced otherwise they wouldn’t be going bankrupt. I am very happy with the price I paid and the performance of their panels.

    What are you talking about? I just looked how much a 205watt Evergreen solar panel cost:, that's $599.00 per panel... Again, the panels are over priced. Maybe you got a good deal Jeff, i don't know, you got 10 of them so maybe you got a deal on bulk purchase, but i still think they are over priced. :) but at 599, that's $2.90 a watt, I'll build you a 210 watt panels for $1.10 a watt, of course they'll be no warranty. lol
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #7
    Re: Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale
    Urbandialect wrote: »
    What are you talking about? I just looked how much a 205watt Evergreen solar panel cost: http://www.spheralsolar.com/products/EVERGREEN-205W-MODULE-ES%252dA%252d205-solar-panel.html , that's $599.00 per panel... Again, the panels are over priced. Maybe you got a good deal Jeff, i don't know, you got 10 of them so maybe you got a deal on bulk purchase, but i still think they are over priced. :) but at 599, that's $2.90 a watt, I'll build you a 210 watt panels for $1.10 a watt, of course they'll be no warranty. lol

    The panels are not "over-priced"; you are comparing them to a non-existent theoretical panel.
    The amount of "success" you've had so far with building your own should have clarified for you exactly what it is you get when you buy one of these "over-priced" commercial panels: a panel that actually works.

    I suspect Evergreen lost money by building panels in China; too many "seconds" and "blems" that had to be dumped on the market below actual manufacturing cost just to recover some capital. If they had continued to build "high priced" panels and didn't have to throw so many away they wouldn't have gone bankrupt.

    Just my opinion. But remember this ol' bird used to work in manufacturing for a large company. It was my job to examine products that had failed and figure out why and who was to blame. I was the least popular guy in the plant. Sort of like here. :p
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  • Solar Guppy
    Solar Guppy Solar Expert Posts: 1,989 ✭✭✭
    #8
    Re: Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale

    The lesson here is what everything is wrong in the US and why we are full speed ahead to becoming a third world economy.

    For giggles one might read

    http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_06/b4214080431984.htm

    http://www.mlive.com/midland/index.ssf/2011/03/ap_evergreen_solar_didnt_move_to_china_for_cheap_labor.html

    When Leman went belly up, it took 300 million from Evergreen, all the banks got Tarp and zero interest money, a manufacturing firm with a potential for good future jobs got the middle finger.

    The Move to China where the company will thrive is due to the access to capital it needs and competitive labor. The CEO did everything possible to keep Evergreen in the US, but no one listened.

    What is happening here is just what our entire High technology feild has been do for a two decade, I've seen this happen first hand, to survive they go to a county that values the job creators and supports them.

    Evergreen had the best SI technology on the planet, Now China will export gigawatts of solar and with it all the jobs it creates. You can poo poo all you want China, South Korea and the other 10 country's that realize the importance of manufacturing and benefit at our collective expense.
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #9
    Re: Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale

    And why can products be built cheaper there? The utter lack of safety and environmental standards that exist here. If they had to follow the same rules there would be no cost advantage in shipping goods from half-way around the world. Which, btw, is obviously not very "green" - ironic, eh?
    Living in British Columbia, the receiving end for tons of Chinese goods, I have to say "good luck making a product there that isn't rubbish-heap ready to begin with".

    But now this is wandering down the too-political path so I'll tell myself to shut up or else I'll have to delete my own posts and ban myself for thirty seconds or more. ;)
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