GreenVolts Loses Investor, Lays Off Majority of Staff

Another Fremont solar company is going under.

Multiple news sites are reporting that GreenVolts has recently lost support from a financial backer, resulting in the laying off of more than 60 of the company’s 80-person staff.

Located at 46400 Fremont Blvd., the seven-year-old company, which manufactures photovoltaic systems and touts itself as "the only complete, fully-integrated solar system," is now planning to sell its technology and assets.

It's a move the San Francisco Business Times is calling Fremont’s “latest solar tragedy.” GreenVolts’ meltdown follows layoffs at NovaSolar in Frebruary and last year.

The failure of local solar companies is due to plummeting prices of solar panels and cheaper, simpler technologies from China that make it “virtually impossible for new companies to compete,” reports the Business Times.

GreenVolt’s recent trouble was “a surprise,” company CEO David Gudmundson told tech news site GigaOm. He said the company was making progress, having secured $35 million in funding last December. The majority of that money — $20 million — came from power company ABB, who recently pulled out.

ABB was supposed to sell and market GreenVolts’ technology, according to GigaOm. Its pull-out has left GreenVolts in a staggering state.

In a statement posted Wednesday on GreenVolts' website, the company said the impact was "so severe that GreenVolts cannot continue normal operation and has reduced its workforce to a small team to provide customer support and engage other options, including working with potential buyers of the system, technology and IP."

Read the full GigaOm report here.

Read the full San Francisco Business Times report here.

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