SunPower Idling Solar Panel Manufacturing Plants

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced solar panel manufacturer SunPower to temporarily put the brakes on production of cells and modules.

On April 20 (local time), SunPower announced in a filing to the United States Securities And Exchange Commission additional actions it was taking to address financial and operational impacts of the COVID-19 situation.

Among them is notification of recent idling of the company’s factories in France, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, and the U.S. SunPower says it expects the facilities will be operational again “in the coming weeks” and that it has enough existing inventory to meet customer requirements.

Other actions include five SunPower executives taking a haircut on their base salaries, among them President and CEO Tom Werner whose salary has been slashed by 50%. The other executives have had their salaries slashed 35% – 50%.

The filing also notes a $55 million credit revolver remains untouched and SunPower anticipates its existing tax equity and debt capacity will be enough to fund all projects throughout the remainder of this year.

SunPower Split Still On Schedule

In November last year, SunPower announced it was to spin off much of its solar panel manufacturing into a new company called Maxeon Solar Technologies. SunPower will subsequently primarily focus on product innovation, solar power system installations, plus storage and energy services.

According to the SEC filing, the company remains on track to complete the split into two independent, publicly traded companies by the end of the second quarter of 2020; assuming the required regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of certain closing conditions.

In late March, SunPower withdrew its previously provided fiscal year 2020 financial guidance as it wasn’t in a position to judge the effects of COVID-19; but remained confident of a bright future.

“We are committed to taking every action within our control to manage our business and serve our customers both now and when the industry recovers,” said Tom Werner at the time. “We have the industry’s best technology and are continuing to invest in our innovative product suite including our storage and digital solutions.”

While SunPower has hit a hopefully very temporary wall, solar panel manufacturers in China have been rapidly ramping up production again. An example is JinkoSolar, which stated its capacity utilisation rate had already recovered to 100% by mid-March. The company said it was sticking by its full year 2020 shipment guidance and capacity expansion plans.