Odersun, Flexible CIGS Solar Vendor, Files for Bankruptcy

Another CIGS vendor in deep trouble

Eric Wesoff March 29, 2012

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

As Shyam Mehta, Solar Analyst at GTM Research, has said, "Consolidation is a nice word that refers to a lot of ugly things.”

And the German solar industry continues its consolidation in this latest piece of news.

German-based Odersun has filed for bankruptcy, according to an article translated from the Potsdamer Neuste Nachrichten. Wages and salaries for 260 people are secured until late May, according to the article.

Evidently, German firms can't just close their doors without giving any notice to their employees, unlike, say, Solyndra. Odersun joins Solon in what will ultimately be a longer list of bankrupt German solar firms.

Odersun uses an electrodeposition process to manufacture its CIS thin film solar product in a process similar to that used by SoloPower.

The German government has provided millions of euros of financial assistance in what is referred to as a "controversial" situation that sounds like a miniature German version of the Solyndra saga. It is reported that a Russian lender might be able to rescue the ten-year-old company, which has had little revenue over its history.

Odersun had a number of challenges aside from just being in the solar industry. The firm was going after flexible solar panels and building-integrated PV, both of which are as yet untenable markets. And the firm was doing some or most of its manufacturing in Germany, an increasingly challenging place to build solar products.

Mehta of GTM Research concludes "It's hard to be successful in a market that does not exist. In my opinion, they were ahead of the competition due to the highly customized nature of their product -- they could custom-produce, for example, orange trapezoidal modules. They were ahead of their time - maybe by a decade."