Exec Departures at Ausra, and Layoffs Too

Layoffs are moving to solar thermal too.

Ausra, the solar thermal specialist that moved from Australia to build utility-scale plants in the Southwest, has shed some of its employees in a layoff, according to people who were laid off by Ausra. The layoffs began in December.

And a pair of high-level executives have left the company as well. Glen Davis, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, and Robert Morgan, executive vice president and chief development officer, sent notes to various acquaintances and colleagues this weekend stating that they both have left the company. The two plan on reinvigorating Agile Energy, the company they were at before Ausra.

A number of solar companies have already started cutting employees in the wake of the credit crisis and economic slowdown. Optisolar laid off 300 employees, or about half of its staff, recently. Optisolar makes solar panels and wants to run solar power plants. SunEdison, a power provider, cut around 50 employees in December. HelioVolt, which makes CIGS solar panels, cut about 15.

Suntech Power Holdings, the giant Chinese solar panel maker, cut 10 percent of its workforce in December. The company has around 8,000 employees.

Ausra marks the first solar thermal company we’ve seen with layoffs. But again, more should be expected. Solar thermal plants are huge, multimillion dollar projects that rely on massive financing packages. Some of the solar thermal companies planning projects now won’t be producing power for a couple of years. Back in the ‘90s, the solar thermal company went under after the state of California refused to continue real estate tax exemptions for these parks.

The company has been trailing some of the other solar thermal companies in landing big contracts, so it was also the most likely to have layoff first. Ausra landed a contract to build a 177-megawatt solar farm for PG&E (and recently opened a 5-megawatt demo facility in the state). But those are small in comparison. Brightsource Energy has a 500-megawatt contract with PG&E that could be expanded to 900 megawatts and Stirling Energy Systems has a 600-megawatt contract with San Diego Gas & Electric and another 850-megawatt contract with Southern California Edison. Solel, one of the early thermal pioneers, is working on a 533-megawatt plant for PG&E.

In these contracts, the developer builds the solar thermal farm and the utility agrees to buy the power. The utilities need to get power from these plants to meet their renewable power requirements in California. But, if the plants aren’t built, it is unknown what will happen to the renewable standards in the state.