BP Solar layoff 140 workers at Maryland plant and 480 at European plants
BP Solar, a unit of the British oil and gas company, announced it is cuting its global manufacturing capacity, laying off 140 workers at a solar panel manufacturing plant in Frederick, MD., and 480 workers at two factories in Madrid. Last year BP shut down a solar panel plant in Australia.
The decision comes as the green energy sector is wrestling with the global recession, which has dried up investments, this after two years of unprecedented growth. Last month at an investor/media conference BP chief executive Tony Hayward said it would scale-back clean energy investments, focusing on developing wind power generation projects in Europe and the U.S., but cutting investments in Asia and in other cleantech ventures.
The credit freeze has lead to a wave of consolidation with First Solar, last month, snatching the project portfolio of Silicon Valley-based OptiSolar in a $400 million all-stock transaction. A few weeks after that transaction, OptiSolar said it was shutting down two silicon panel manufacturing plants in Sacramento and Hayward, Calif.
In a statement BP Solar chief executive Reyad Fezzani said the job cuts come “at a time when solar markets are unsettled by the impact of the global economic environment, an over-supplied market, increased competition and rapidly falling prices.”
The company says the global layoffs will help the company reduce costs by 20% to 25% but it declined to provide a specific dollar figure.
The Frederick plant will continue to cast the silicon into parts — it will no longer assemble these parts into complete solar panels. BP Solar plans to instead outsource the assembly to plants in the U.S. and Europe.
The green energy sector is awaiting for government funding from the recently passed stimulus package. Rules on how to distribute these monies are still being drafted and it could take a while before they reach companies.
