Ten K Solar to “discontinue” current operation

News of private companies is often hard to come by, even when these private companies are going under, as unlike public companies they are under no obligation to provide publicly available information.

Late yesterday Ten K Solar posted its first definitive statement about recent developments at the company, stating that it would “discontinue its current operation” and “terminate many of he services it formerly provided for its customers”.

Earlier this week Ten K Solar told pv magazine that it was “restructuring”, and appointing a chief restructuring officer.

The company has to date made no mention of how many employees are being laid off, however Greentech Media has reported that 2/3 of Ten K Solar’s staff is being let go, with the rest to depart by the end of June. This could not be verified, as Ten K Solar has to date submitted no filing with Minnesota labor officials regarding layoffs.

And while Ten K Solar did not dispute the level of layoffs, it has taken issue with Greentech Media’s allegations that failures at projects due to faulty microinverters were a major factor in the company’s problems.

“Recent articles published by GTM and others were not based on information provided by Ten K, or a known trusted source,” stated the company. “Ten K’s decisions are based purely on the facts above, and are not based on any hardware, or product performance issues.”

Instead, Ten K Solar has cited “significant price pressures and scale”, estimating that in 2016 alone PV module prices have fallen more than 30%. And it is not coincidence that Ten K Solar’s restructuring follows bankruptcies at the German parent company of SolarWorld as well as Suniva, the two largest crystalline silicon PV makers in the United States.

It is not clear what is next for Ten K Solar. The company states that it will “reposition the business to live within the constraints of these marketplace realities”, but gave no further details as to what that will look like.