SpectraWatt Inc., winner of a Dutchess County Business Excellence award this year, is closing in March. The company said it hopes it will be able to reopen, but provides no details.
The stunning reversal comes several months after SpectraWatt first opened on the IBM campus in East Fishkill, where the company started its production line in May. And it is the second abrupt closing announcement in two months of a local company that, on the surface at least, seemed healthy.
SpectraWatt makes photovoltaic cells for the solar panels industry and as recently as earlier this month publicly spoke well of company prospects. Just weeks ago, CEO Andrew Wilson said the company was operating its production lines 24/7 and had hired 153 employees.
“We certainly anticipate SpectraWatt”™s continued evolution in years ahead,” Wilson said then.
But most officials expected a different outcome from the company, which was visited by U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis as it prepared to start operations and was touted by CNN as an example of a burgeoning American-based solar industry.
In a press release Dec. 21, the company announced layoffs at the plant in a two-sentence release. “This action is undertaken in response to deteriorating market conditions resulting from a harsher-than-usual European winter causing a large drop-off in demand for solar cells. The company continues to pursue alternatives aimed at improving its current situation and hopes to reverse this action.”
Later in the day, the state Department of Labor posted an official WARN act notice telling of a “plant closure” in March, costing 117 workers their job. The notice states layoffs would commence March 20 and the plant would close April 4.
The company has a research and development facility in Oregon, it is uncertain what will become of that facility. The company did not respond to email messages and voice messages left on various phones with company officials.
That SpectraWatt blamed its problems on bad weather in Europe is an ominous sign of weakness in American solar company prospects, as this country still is slow to subsidize solar energy businesses. SpectraWatt and other local solar companies have shipped much of their production to countries that were encouraging solar power using government subsidies. But the harsh winter weather that struck last month and has persisted with unusual cold and snow delayed any construction. And the uncertain economic climate has led some countries to curtail or end their programs for subsidizing solar energy.
SpectraWatt garnered some $90 million in private financing and about $8 million in government assistance and subsidies to help jumpstart the business, which was one of the few large manufacturing facilities to start up in the Hudson Valley in recent years. It was considered a jewel of sorts in the necklace of solar power-related industries that The Solar Energy Consortium has helped facilitate in Ulster and Dutchess counties and around the state.
Vincent Cozzolino, the consortium”™s CEO, could not be reached for comment.
At recent public appearances, including an alternative energy forum held with U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in November, Wilson had spoken about unfair business practices in China, which is heavily subsidizing its solar industry and has been accused of dumping solar panels and other solar power components onto world markets at below-production prices, to drive competitors out of business and thus corner the solar market for Chinese companies.
The sudden closing of a highly touted economic success story is the second example of how tenuous business is proving to be in this area, as the ongoing economic weakness continues to sap capital and confidence from the business world.
On Nov. 3, Partsearch, a company at Tech City, notified the state Department of Labor that it would lay off at least 130 workers at its Ulster and New York City locations.
“Due to the unforeseeable loss of its largest client, Best Buy, the company may have to institute a permanent mass layoff at its New York City and (town of)Â Ulster locations,” DOL spokesman Joe Morrissey said November 3. Partsearch officials themselves could not be reached for comment then or now. The facility is closed.
