Sovello, based in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, not far from Q-Cells, cannot pay its debts and has asked the Dessau insolvency court to restructure under its management, the company said in a release on its website yesterday.

In early 2010, Sovello, the Q-Cells-Evergreen-REC joint venture, then on the verge of bankruptcy, was sold to German private equity firm Ventizz Capital. The firm's Evergreen/Q-Cells/REC provenance does not bode well for its future.

German photovoltaic panel manufacturers are faced with reduced feed-in tariffs, increased competition from China, and a global oversupply of solar modules.  

Sovello joins Germany's Q-Cells, Soltecture, Odersun, Solar Millennium, and Solon in the group of the country's extremely troubled or shuttered PV manufacturing firms. Q-Cells was Germany's -- and once the globe's -- largest solar manufacturer. It is now on the brink of bankruptcy.

As Shyam Mehta has said, "'Consolidation' is a nice word that refers to a lot of ugly things.”