What kind of company is solyndra

And in the two years since the Department issued the loan guarantee, Solyndra faced deteriorating market conditions. Solar PV production has expanded at the same time that demand has softened due to the global economic downturn and a decline in subsidies in countries including Spain, Italy and Germany. The result has been an acute drop in the price of solar cells, which has taken a toll on many solar companies in Europe, Asia and the United States.

Meanwhile, countries like China are playing to win in the solar industry. China has invested aggressively to support its companies, and in recent years, China has seen its market share in solar cell and solar module production grow significantly, to roughly half the market today. Facing a liquidity crisis near the end of , Solyndra informed us that it needed emergency financing from its existing investors to complete scale-up of its operations and reach profitability. The Department faced a difficult decision: force the company into immediate bankruptcy or restructure the loan guarantee to allow the company to accept emergency financing that would be paid back first if the company was still unable to recover.

Immediate bankruptcy meant a percent certainty of default, with an unfinished plant as collateral. Restructuring improved the chance of recovering taxpayer money by giving the company a fighting chance at success, with a completed plant as collateral. I approved restructuring of the loan guarantee to give the taxpayers the best chance at recovery. In August of , Solyndra faced another liquidity crisis and the Department again faced a tough choice.

We asked some of the smartest financial analysts to look at the health of the company. We reviewed a number of options, and ultimately, we concluded that providing additional support to this company was not in the taxpayer's best interests. We support that review, and I look forward to the results. The Energy Department is committed to continually improving and applying lessons learned in everything we do, because the stakes could not be higher for our country.

When it comes to the clean energy race, America faces a simple choice: compete or accept defeat. I believe we can and must compete. Collectively, the projects plan to employ more than 60, Americans, create tens of thousands more indirect jobs, provide clean electricity to power three million homes, and save more than million gallons of gasoline a year, all while investing in American competitiveness.

What matters to the men and women who have those jobs is that the investments that this Administration is making are helping to keep factories open and running. When the Washington Post claims that the program has created 3, jobs, here is what the reporters are excluding:. Others have not ramped fully up to scale. But we are on pace to achieve more than 60, direct jobs — and many more in the supply chain. It employed workers during construction.

Those wind turbines were built in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The project also features a state of the art energy storage system supplied by a company in Texas. The supply chain reached U. The investments are helping to build a new clean energy industry here in America. We are now on pace to double renewable energy generation from wind and solar from the time the President took office. Yet we are still in danger of falling behind China and other nations that are competing aggressively for leadership in these technologies.

This is a race we can and will win, but only if we make these investments today. One of the goals of the program is to create projects that will encourage the private sector to take the financing risk on other, similar projects on its own. If we can show, for example, that a commercial scale cellulosic biofuel plant in Iowa can succeed, the private sector will likely finance many more of them around the country.

The next great technological revolution is the clean energy revolution, and this Administration is committed to making sure that America will continue to lead the world. The International Energy Agency projects that solar power will grow steadily, producing nearly a quarter of the world's electricity within four decades. In a matter of days, Solyndra ceased operations, plunged into bankruptcy, was raided by the FBI and found itself thrust into a national political firestorm.

Almost to the end, private investors continued to pump millions into the company. Officials in Sacramento; Madison, Wis. Whether corporate managers issued misleading financial information or covered up growing problems remains to be determined as federal authorities probe the company, which fired its roughly 1, employees on the last day of August and filed for Chapter 11 protection Sept.

It was a real company with a huge factory and an extremely unique product. Its rectangular panels, called modules, are made of dozens of horizontally arrayed cylindrical tubes — hence the name Solyndra. As the sun tracks across the sky, the curved surfaces stay perpendicular to its rays all day, unlike conventional flat panels.

And light reflecting off the roof hits the underside of the tubes, increasing production. Best of all, said Laura Weilert, a Denver solar engineer, is the way the modules let air circulate through them. Venture capitalists raced to get in, making Solyndra one of the hottest bets in Silicon Valley at a time when solar was rapidly expanding in the U. Other investors included billionaire Oklahoma oil baron George Kaiser, and a fund that manages the money of the family behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

It also had applied for the Department of Energy loan guarantee, which would be granted in Heavily subsidized Chinese flat-panel makers began slashing prices faster than Solyndra could. The company never made a profit. GreenTech Media looks at the prospects for all or parts of Solyndra getting bought here. Video here. Both Solyndra and electric-vehicle maker Tesla provided neat examples on a locally specific level for those pointing to a hoped-for transition in manufacturing to green technology -- and green jobs.

Then Solyndra signed a huge lease for 1. In May, , President Obama visited Solyndra and held it up as an example of the kind of green-energy firm the administration was trying to cultivate. Here's video of Obama's remarks that day:. Text of Obama's address here, extracts below:. I try to visit places like this about once a week, hear from folks as often as possible who are actually doing the extraordinary work of building up America. And I appreciated the chance to tour your plant and to see the incredible, cutting-edge solar panels that you're manufacturing, but also the process that goes into the manufacturing of these solar panels.

And it is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world.

And you guys all represent that. So thank you very much for that So we recognized that we've got to go back to basics. We've got to go back to making things. We've got to go back to exports.