The layoffs represent 180 full-time workers and 100 part-time employees, according to the Longmont Times-Call. That is about a 70 percent reduction of Abound's 400-employee Colorado workforce.
"We are facing tough market conditions and falling prices," Steve Abely, Abound's chief financial officer, told The Denver Post.
Abound will take six to nine months to install new equipment and develop a solar panel that will be 20 percent more efficient and more cost competitive, the company said.
"Hopefully by then the market will recover," Abely said.
The price for solar panels has collapsed, dropping almost 60 percent to $1.10 a watt between 2009 and 2011, according to industry consultant Solarbuzz.
The decline was caused by Chinese manufacturers, backed by low-cost government loans, ramping up production, Abely said.
In July 2010, Abound received a $400 million federal loan guarantee from the same Department of Energy program that financed a $535 million loan for Solyndra, a California panel maker that went bankrupt.
Taxpayers are responsible for covering Solyndra's $535 million loan.
Abound has used $70 million of its loan guarantee and will not be able to use any more until it again begins production and hiring, Abely said.
"Solyndra cells were never cost competitive," Abely said. "We are competitive."
The aim is to begin rehiring workers toward the end of the year in Longmont, Abely said.
The biggest part of Abound's guarantee is for a new plant in Tipton, Ind., that was slated to have 1,200 workers.
Initially, Abound said the plant would start operation at the end of 2012, but the company said in a statement that it would have an "update" on the facility in the middle of 2013.
SOURCE: http://www.chieftain.com/business/local/solar-leader-abound-suspends-work/article_041e705c-6357-11e1-a1fb-0019bb2963f4.html
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