Innotech Solar has filed for insolvency, blaming its predicament on “general uncertainty within the European PV market”.
The filing was made at Narvik in Norway on 24 March, the company said. German subsidiaries ITS Innotech Solar Module GmbH, ITS Halle Cell GmbH and Energiebau Solar Power GmbH, Cologne, also filed for insolvency on 25 March.
The insolvency of the three German subsidiaries affects a total of 120 employees. Their wages and salaries will be secured until the end of May by the German Insolvency fund. Swedish module factory SweModule AB filed for insolvency two weeks ago, Innotech added.
“Despite having a unique, automated, proven, value creating cell optimisation pro-cess, excellent staff and supportive investors we have failed to achieve the neces-sary financial stability needed to weather the storms within the PV industry,” said Innotech Solar chief executive Jerry Stokes.
“The main reason for this failure is not the business model but the general uncertainty within the European PV market through sudden policy change and poor enforcement until very recently of the Minimum Price Undertaking agreed with the Chinese government, combined at a seasonal time when demand was low.
“We confidently believe that leading solar cell companies will be very interested to gain access to our cell optimisation process and for the largest companies accessing this intellectual property and applying it within their own manufacturing lines can be extremely profitable.”
Rüdiger Bauch from Schultze & Braun Halle/Leipzig has been appointed pre-liminary insolvency administrator by the insolvency court of Halle for ITS Innotech Solar Module GmbH and ITS Halle Cell GmbH. A preliminary insolvency administrator for Energie Solar Power GmbH in Cologne has not yet been appointed.
Image: an Innotech project at the Urla Winery on the Turkish Riviera (Innotech Solar)
Source: BPVA
