ATS’s Photowatt temporarily shuts down solar manufacturing
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009Low demand for solar modules has hit yet another solar PV manufacturer. ATS’s Photowatt, which has manufacturing in France, announced today it will shut down its facilities for three weeks “in response to lower demand for solar modules and systems.” The company said it will take the down time to implement process improvements, which is a smart thing to do. Still, it’s just the latest sign of how the credit crisis is slowing down the market for renewable-energy projects. There’s no shortage of projects in the hopper, but they’re moving slowly as developers figure out ways to raise cash or simply hunker down and wait out the storm. Day4 Energy, Arise and Timminco are among the other publicly traded Canadian solar companies that have been hit hard by the downturn. And, of course, there are many more beyond Canadian borders.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca