The General Electric Co. has abandoned plans for a $300 million solar-panel factory in Aurora and instead struck a deal with the largest U.S. solar-panel maker, First Solar Inc.
GE is giving technology developed by a Colorado startup it bought to First Solar in exchange for 1.75 million shares in the Tempe, Ariz.-based company — worth about $82 million based on Tuesday’s closing share price.
The Arvada research center — where the technology was created and which was formerly PrimeStar Solar — will be closed, with 50 people losing their jobs, GE spokeswoman Lindsay Thiele said.
“There is a need for consolidation in the industry, but this really hurts Colorado,” said Chris Shaphard, executive director of the Colorado Cleantech Industry Association.
The move is being driven by an overcapacity in solar-panel manufacturing and about a 50 percent drop in panel prices in the past two years.
“Solar-module manufacturing is very competitive, and only the most competitive technology at the most competitive cost position will succeed,” Thiele said.
“We have decided that it is not in the best interest of GE, our customers or the Denver community to move forward with the build-out of this facility,” she said.
Aurora officials and Gov. John Hickenlooper had lobbied GE for the solar plant, which would have employed about 350 people.
“It is like planting a seed,” Hickenlooper said when the plant was announced in October 2011. “It will benefit the whole region.”
By 2012, the market was being flooded by imported Chinese panels, and module prices plummeted. In July 2012, GE put the plant on an 18-month hold.
“Sometimes, timing is not on your side,” said Wendy Mitchell, chief executive of the Aurora Economic Development Council. “It is not a good day when we lose a company.”
The state had offered GE an incentive package, but none of it was paid out, said Ken Lund, director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
“GE has been a good partner and has kept us informed,” Lund said. “It was a business decision, but it is disappointing.”
First Solar is the largest maker of thin-film solar panels — using a micro-layer of cadmium telluride on a flexible substrate to make a photovoltaic, or PV, panel.
One of the challenges with cadmium-telluride panels is their efficiency, an issue on which PrimeStar had made progress.
GE first invested in PrimeStar in 2007 and acquired the company in 2009.
A group of researchers associated with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden created the company in 2006.
Under the agreement, First Solar’s factories will be used to deploy the technology, and the two companies will work on future research at the GE Global Research Center outside of Schenectady, N.Y.
“This was a way to get the technology to market more quickly,” Thiele said.
While GE’s decision might be a blow to Colorado, Brian Murphy, one of PrimeStar’s founders, said the deal might be necessary for thin-film technology to compete against standard silicon panels.
“You’re taking two big companies that have leading technology,” Murphy said. “This gives CdTe (cadmium telluride) a better chance.”
As for the closing of the Arvada lab, Murphy said, “It is was it is.”
In a statement, First Solar CEO Jim Hughes said the addition of GE’s technology and research will “advance our technology road map while realizing cost reduction in our manufacturing process.”
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912, mjaffe@denverpost.com or twitter.com/bymarkjaffe
