Two More Stimulus-Backed Solar Companies Given $84 Million In Tax Credits Announce Layoffs… Obama’s got the magic touch, everything he touches turns to crap. Via Heritage: A pair of foreign-owned solar companies that benefited from a combined $84 million in Energy Department tax credits have announced they will lay off employees. One of the companies, German-owned SolarWorld, was integral in the fight for tariffs against the importation of Chinese photovoltaic solar panels. The other, Chinese company SunTech, blamed those tariffs for its own layoffs. Both companies benefited from the Energy Department’s stimulus-funded Advanced Energy Manufacturing (48C) Tax Credit. The 48C credit is worth up to 30% of the cost of manufacturing qualifying green energy projects. SolarWorld received a credit worth $82 million, while SunTech’s was worth $2.1 million. Both companies announced this week that they will shed some employees. SolarWorld, which announced a 47% revenue decline in the third quarter, blamed a potential 37 layoffs at its Oregon plant on “illegal” Chinese trade practices. SunTech said the U.S. International Trade Commission’s 35.95% tariff on Chinese solar panels was partially responsible for the 50 impending layoffs at its Arizona production facilities.
Obama Admin Gave Electric Car Battery Maker A123 Systems $1 Million The Day It Filed For Bankruptcy… Only in Obamaland. (Reuters) – The Obama administration provided struggling battery maker A123 Systems Inc with nearly $1 million on the day it filed for bankruptcy, the company told lawmakers investigating its government grant. The company, which makes lithium ion batteries for electric cars, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month after a rescue deal with Chinese auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group fell apart. That same day, October 16, A123 received a $946,830 payment as part of its $249 million clean energy grant from the Energy Department, the company said in a letter, obtained by Reuters, to Republican Senators John Thune and Chuck Grassley. In the letter, dated November 14, A123 said the October payment was the most recent disbursement it had received from the government, with an additional $115.8 million still outstanding on the grant. Thune and Grassley have pressed the Energy Department for more details about its funding of A123 as the company has faltered. “The Department of Energy needs to answer for why it appears to put federal grants on auto-pilot to the detriment of U.S. taxpayers,” Senators Thune and Grassley said in a statement. “This can’t stand.”
... and these foreign companies are being backed by an American administration when an American company, Applied Materials, is trying to make strides with solar efficiency to make it an affordable solution.