Showing posts with label Green Jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Jobs. Show all posts

Friday, February 27, 2015

Oregon's Governor Resigns Amid Ethics, "Green Energy" Scandal

Oregon's four term Democrat governor John Kitzhaber announced his resignation last week amid growing pressure from an ethics investigation and reports that his fiancée was involved in a 'Green Energy' pay-to-play scheme.

According to media reports, Kitzhaber's fiancée- Cylvia Hayes- acted in a rather dubious triple role, acting as Oregon's de-facto First Lady, the governor's 'green energy' adviser and a paid consultant for the 'green energy' industry. However, while serving as Kitzhaber's unpaid energy advisor, Hayes reportedly pocketed $118,000 in consulting fees from various green energy lobbying firms- including some tied to billionaire democrat donor Tom Steyer- that she failed to disclose on her ethics filings for the governor's office.

While serving as an unpaid policy adviser for the governor’s office, Ms. Hayes collected $118,000 in fellowship and consulting fees from the Clean Economy Development Center, a Washington-based nonprofit, for work on low-carbon fuel standard legislation in Oregon.

Ms. Hayes never disclosed the payments on her ethics filings for the governor’s office.

The Clean Economy Development Center went out of business after the IRS pulled its tax-exempt status. Before it did, the center received funding for Ms. Hayes‘ fellowship from another nonprofit, the Energy Foundation, which in 2012 received $200,000 in funding from Mr. Steyer’s “TomKat” Charitable Trust, according to the group’s latest 990 tax form.

The Energy Foundation hired Ms. Hayes directly in 2013 for communications work, giving her a contract of $50,000, according to documents and interviews.

The web of payments, the failure to disclose and questions about influence peddling have prompted the state’s attorney general to open an ethics investigation. Republican state lawmakers also have demanded a suspension of the new fuel legislation, which would keep Oregon’s low carbon fuel standards in place instead of expiring this year.

Hayes is also suing The Oregonian in a move designed to prevent the release of e-mails she sent while working as a consultant to the governor. Her lawyers argue that Hayes is technically not a public official, despite closing some e-mails with the initials FLO- First Lady of Oregon.

These wouldn't be the first shady dealings that Hayes was involved in. In 2002, Hayes reportedly accepted $5000 to take part in a sham marriage to an Ethiopian immigrant and in the 1990s she was accused of participating in a scheme to buy acreage in Washington state to grow marijuana on.

Meanwhile, the FBI and IRS are investigating Kitzhaber, Hayes, former staffers and state officials on possible charges of tax evasion and influence peddling while the Willamette Week released more of Hayes' emails that indicated she sought to leverage her position with the governor to land additional lucrative contracts.

Friday, October 25, 2013

What If They Had A Solar Auction and Nobody Came?

In Colorado, you didn't have to imagine. The Denver Business Journal reports that bidders at the nation's first federally-run auction to develop solar projects on public lands were a no-show. And to clarify, I don't mean there were a few internet, telephone or mail-in bids- there were literally ZERO bidders.

To be fair, the Bureau of Land Management had received dozens of inquiries about developing various areas for proposed solar projects, but for whatever reason, none of the interested parties bothered showing up to Thursday's auction.

No bidders showed up for the auction by the federal Bureau of Land Management, which was held Thursday in Lakewood.

“We did not have any bidders come to the sale and we did not receive any sealed bids on the sale,” BLM spokeswoman Vanessa Lacayo said.

“The BLM had received interest in developing the sites, that’s why we moved forward,” she said. “It’s hard to say why we didn’t have any bidders."

In a statement, the BLM said it held the auction because the agency received nine applications and 27 inquiries and expressions of interest after it sought to gauge interest levels from the private sector in March 2013.

The auction offered companies the first chance to bid on the opportunity to file development plans for solar power plants on three parcels in Colorado’s two “Solar Energy Zones” in Conejos and Saguache counties in the sunny San Luis Valley.

While green energy advocates say that the recent government shutdown may have caused uncertainty regarding the auction, recent bankruptcies of solar energy firms such as SunTech, Solyndra, Evergreen Solar or Spectra Watt have likely scared hedge funds and venture capitalists away from the solar companies- despite heavy government subsidies.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

China-Based Solar Giant Suntech Files For Bankruptcy

Once the largest manufacturer of solar panels, China's Sun Tech Holdings filed for bankruptcy last week after defaulting on a $541 Million bond payment this month.
Suntech said in a news release that a group of eight Chinese banks filed a petition for insolvency and restructuring of its main operating subsidiary in China in the Wuxi Municipal Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu province.

Wuxi Suntech told the court it woudln't file an objection to the petition, Suntech said, adding that the court will decide whether to accept the petition in the next few days. If the petition is approved, Suntech will continue to produce solar products to meet customer orders, Suntech added.

The banks are owed as much as 7.1 billion yuan (US$1.14 billion) and include Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China, the official Xinhua news agency reported earlier.
The filing has triggered volatility that has rippled across China's renewable energy sector in the days following Sun Tech Holdings initiating bankruptcy protection. Shares of Sun Tech [NYSE- STP] closed down 28.81% since the March 20th filing while shares in Yingli Green Energy [NYSE- YGE] declined 13.89% since Wednseday and LDK Solar [NYSE- LDK] was down 6.87% since Tuesday.

According to industry observers, Sun Tech's path to bankruptcy in China was paved with numerous warnings and red flags. In June of last year, a representative at the Luxembourg-based, Sun Tech-controlled Global Solar Fund was accused of fradulently obtaining a guaranteed $680 million loan by pledging nonexistent German bonds as collateral. The following month, prosecutors in Italy filed criminal charges against  the Global Solar Fund for illegally building solar farms in Italy to milk that country's generous renewable energy subsidies.
A prosecutor in the southern Italian city of Brindisi has formally charged five of the fund's subsidiaries with illegal construction of solar power plants, accusing them of sidestepping the approval process in order to exploit Italy's generous renewable-energy subsidies.

The charges are that GSF subsidiaries failed to obtain the correct permit to build solar plants of more than 1 MW by splitting each park up into several smaller units that qualified for a less rigorous and faster permitting process.

In some cases, the GSF subsidiaries prematurely announced completion of construction on the plants in order to meet a deadline needed to qualify for incentives, court documents show.

The trial involving these five solar plants is set to begin on December 6.

Another 11 of the companies controlled by the fund are under investigation, and charges will be sought against them, said Nicolangelo Ghizzardi, the prosecutor handling the cases.
Sun Tech hastily reached a settlement with the Luxembourg-based GSF earlier this month in the hopes of raising enough cash for the $541 million bond payment they eventually defaulted on.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Italian Police Raid Yet Another Mafia Operated 'Green Energy' Shell Company



Police in Sicily have arrested six people with suspected ties to fugitive cosa nostra leader Matteo Messina Denaro and seized and estimated  €10 billion in assets last week as part of an ongoing investigation into the mafia's involvement with wind and solar energy companies.

Police said Mafia members got contracts for work on wind farms and solar-energy plants near Agrigento, Palermo and Trapani. A wave of arrests over recent years have closed the net around fugitive 50-year-old Agrigento-based boss Denaro, one of the world's 10 most-wanted men, who took control of Cosa Nostra after the 2006 arrest of Bernardo Provenzano.
A Sicilian judge has ordered that the funds of a Malta-based holding company be frozen after investigators learned that Valetta-based Eryngium, Inc was the recipient of a number of funds from the properties allegedly connected to Denaro and the costa nostra.

In recent years, green/renewable energy projects have proven attractive to Italian organized crime groups like the cost nostra in Sicily or the 'Ndragheta in Calabria. In addition to Italy buying the electricity from such projects at generous rates, there's also the opportunity to siphon off grants and subsidies from both Rome and the EU as well as using the wind and solar businesses to launder funds from other criminal activity such as drug trafficking and extortion.

Exit question- is the Italian mafia providing organized crime groups elsewhere with a blueprint for bilking public funds and laundering money through 'green energy' companies?

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

More Taxpayer Funded 'Green Energy' Firms File For Bankruptcy

Say what you will about the Obama Administration, at least they're the model of consistency when they try and pick renewable energy winners while playing venture capitalist with other people's money.

No less than two Massachusetts-based 'green energy' companies- one of them touted by President Obama as a Stimulus success story- have filed for bankruptcy last week.

Waltham, MA-based battery manufacturer A123 Systems [NASDAQ- AONE] had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on October 16.



The company had gone through nearly $260 million in Federal grants and loans since 2010 as well as another $5 million from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The struggling battery manufacturer was supposedly close to a deal worth more than $400 million with China's Wanxian Group [SSE- 600371] but that deal fell through.

Instead, Wisconsin-based Johnson Controls [NYSE- JCI] is bidding to purchase A123's assets including two battery plants in Michigan.

The following day, Boston-based solar inverter company SatCon had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. SatCon [NASDAQ- SATC], which primarily markets towards industrial and utility grade photvalic markets, had been awarded two seperate stimulus grants of $3 million each- far less than A123 or Solyndra- but has reportedly used an estimated total of $228,000 from those contracts.

On the other end of the country, officials in the Treasury Department are investigating the financial practices of a solar company run by a bundler for Obama's Presidential campaign.

Elon Musk was hoping to put his San Mateo, CA-based Solar City up for an initial public offering (IPO),but some of the disclosures required by the SEC has garnered the attention of the IRS and Treasury in two seperate probes.
The Internal Revenue Service is auditing SolarCity, the SEC filings reveal, and at the same time the Treasury Department's inspector general is investigating the company. The question at hand: Did President Obama's Treasury Department inappropriately give stimulus money to Musk's company.

Obama's stimulus transformed a long-standing tax credit for renewable energy investment into a direct grant from Treasury, worth 30 percent of a company's investment in a renewable project. Musk's company has applied for approximately $325 million in these stimulus grants, according to the SEC filing.

Treasury found that SolarCity repeatedly overstated the value of its investments, the SEC filings indicate. In those cases, Treasury awarded smaller grants than SolarCity had tried to claim. Now the department's IG and the IRS are doing a broader audit of the projects for which SolarCity and other large solar companies got stimulus cash. Investigators want to know if the companies regularly overstated the value of their investments and thus got overly generous taxpayer grants.
Musk is also the CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla motors, which recieved grants and low-interest loans from the US government to the tune of $465 million in 2009. Musk has reportedly donated more than $100,000 to President Obama's campaign and alligned PACs as well.

Meanwhile, workers in a Holland, MI plant that made batteries for the Chevy Volt are now saying that there is literally nothing to do but tidy up around the place or play cards as there are no orders for them to work on. The facility, run by South Korea-based LG Chem, has had very little in the way of work since General Motors scaled back production of the hybrid Chevy volt. The new facility, which broke ground in 2010, recieved $151 million in stiumulus funds and reportedly has yet to make a single battery.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Obama Nixes KeystoneXL Pipeline As Department of Energy Loans to Solyndra, 11 Other Troubled 'Green Energy' Companies Probed


The Obama Administration formally dismissed a bid by a Canadian company to construct a pipeline that would bring in oil from northern Alberta's tar sands to Texas for refining. Although the State Department and Obama Administration has left the door open for TransCanada [NYSE: TRP] to re-apply for a permit to build the KeystoneXL pipeline or alter the planned route, it's considered unlikely that the company will do so until after the 2012 Presidential election.

President Obama had until Feb 21st to make a decision regarding the proposed KeystoneXL pipeline, but [brace yourself- NANESB!] blamed Republicans for his decision claiming that the 'arbitrary' deadline made approving the project impossible, despite the fact that the project has been under review for environmental impact on both sides of the border since 2007. Initially, approval of the product was left up to the State Department owing to the fact that it crossed an international boundary into the USA. President Obama initially announced that he would punt the final decision on KeystoneXL until after the 2012 election [i.e. when either somebody else was in the White House or he didn't have to worry about re-election- NANESB!] but House Republicans included a stipulation in the payroll tax cut debate in December that Obama had to make a decision within 60 days on the pipeline.

At least one union, the Laborers International Union of North America (LiUNA), was furious with the Obama Administration's decision, citing that the project has already underwent more than 1100 days of environmental review and that the Presidents dismissal of TransCanada's project disproportionately hurt the construction industry, which has been experiencing persistently high unemployment for the last 3 years.

Instead of waiting around for Presidential approval that is less likely to be granted, Canada is looking to market the oil from the Abathasca Oil Sands in China. To that end, TransCanada's competitor Enbridge Energy [NYSE: ENB, EEP, EEQ], backed by China's quasi state-run Sinopec [NYSE- SHI] are working on building a pipeline dubbed the Western Gateway Pipeline that would link Alberta with the Pacific Coast where the oil would be shipped to Asia from there. Curiously, this route raises even more environmental concerns as the proposed western terminus of the Northern Gateway pipeline is Kitmat, BC. From the Pacific ocean, Kitmat is only accessible by a relatively narrow inlet that poses a number of weather and navigation hazards, and the province of British Columbia imposed an informal moratorium on tanker traffic off shipping lanes north of Vancouver Island.

Obama's KeystoneXL decision barely two days after a CBS report highlighted a number of struggling 'green energy' firms that had gotten generous loans from the Department of Energy besides Solyndra.


Massachusetts-based Beacon Power filed for bankruptcy in Late October nearly a year after it had received $43 million in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy.

Roughly a month before Beacon's bankruptcy, Solar firms Solyndra, SpectraWatt and Evergreen had also filed for bankruptcy. The San Francisco Bay-area based Solyndra got the most attention out of the bankrupt firms since Obama campaign bundler George Kaiser was heavily invested in the venture and reportedly lobbied the White House directly for even more funds as the firm continued to struggle.

Along with Beacon, Evergreen solar was de-listed from the NASDAQ recently. While Beacon Power still maintains a Tyngsboro, MA address, in a cost-cutting measure, Evergreen left the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for facilities in China despite Massachusetts awarding the company nearly $60 million in grants and tax incentives to set up shop in Devens, MA.

On the other end of the country, a geothermal plant championed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) continues to struggle despite being awarded loan guarantees of $79 million as well as another $66 million in grants. Nevada Geothermal [TSX.V: NGP.V] reportedly still owes $88 million for construction costs on top of their operating costs as well.

Keep in mind that the American taxpayer is more than $500 million in the hole for Solyndra alone, but with 11 other failing 'green energy' companies who were recipients of DOE loans and various government grants, that number can only go up.

Back in December, President Obama had the unmitigated chutzpah to claim that extended jobless benefits would create more jobs than the KeystoneXL project he was set to vote on. Through his stewardship of the economy, he has ensured that both the American 'Green collar jobs' he so desperately wants to tout as well as the Canadian oil the rest of the country could use are on their way to China

Friday, October 21, 2011

Electric Car Company Building Vehicles in Finland After Obtaining US Gov't Loan From Obama Administration



The Obama Administration and Department of Energy are defending a $529 Million loan to Anaheim, CA-based electric car manufacturer Fisker after a report from ABC News on Thursday highlighted the fact that two years ago, the Administration approved the company shifting production overseas to Finland.
Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department's $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the company's manufacturing jobs are still limited to the assembly of the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car in Finland.

"There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle," the car company's founder and namesake told ABC News. "They don't exist here."

Henrik Fisker said the U.S. money has been spent on engineering and design work that stayed in the U.S., not on the 500 manufacturing jobs that went to a rural Finnish firm, Valmet Automotive.

The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty -- and pricey -- cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore, predicts it will eventually be churning out tens of thousands of electric sports sedans at the shuttered GM factory it bought in Delaware. And Tesla Motors, whose prime backers include PayPal mogul Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, says it will do the same in a massive facility tooling up in Silicon Valley.

Fisker is more than a year behind rolling out its $97,000 luxury vehicle bankrolled in part with DOE money. While more are promised soon, just 40 of its Karma cars (below) have been manufactured and only two delivered to customers' driveways, including one to movie star Leonardo DiCaprio.
A department of Energy spokesman defended the loan to Fisker, saying that the company also plans on producing a $50,000 hybrid called the Nina at a shuttered General Motors plant in Delaware.
"The Department's funding was only used for the U.S. operations," Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow wrote. "The money could not be, and was not, spent on overseas operations. The Karma also relies on an extensive network of hundreds of suppliers in more than a dozen U.S. states."

He said the first part of the loan, $169 million, supported engineering work at Fisker's U.S. facilities as the company "developed the tools, equipment and manufacturing processes for Fisker's first vehicle" -- though that work so far has not contributed to a production line in the U.S.

But Leistikow said the rest of the loan is still supporting U.S. production of another vehicle line called the Nina.

"Fisker is using this funding to bring a shuttered General Motors plant in Delaware back to life and employing more than 2,500 workers. Fisker was attracted to this site in part by the opportunity to rehire some of the trained, dedicated workers who lost their jobs when that plant closed," Leistikow said.
However, industry sources are claiming that Fisker's production of the Nina at the Delaware site has been pushed back to mid-2013. Fisker claims that the car has been designed and built, but remains under wraps to maintain a competitive edge.

Moreover, according to a recent Forbes article, once off its electric motor (reportedly good for 32 miles) the Fisker's Karma hybrid actually gets worse gas mileage than a late model Ford Explorer SUV

Does anybody else remember the various factory and workshop tours that President Obama embarked upon during 'Recovery Summer' last year? All of them seemed to pivot around so called 'Green Jobs'- factories that made electric vehicle components, solar panels or batteries for hybrids. And it seems that this wasn't really by accident, either.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Solyndra Raided by FBI After Bankruptcy Filing

Remember what I was saying about this not being a good month for Federally subsidised solar panel manufacturers? Looks like it's about to get worse for California-based Solyndra, Inc.

Federal agents executed a search warrant at the Northern California headquarters of solar panel manufacturer Solyndra Inc., which filed for bankruptcy protection this week despite receiving $535 million in federal stimulus loan guarantees.

The FBI and Department of Energy's Office of Inspector General confirmed that their agents were involved in the raid Thursday at Solyndra's offices in Fremont but declined to discuss what they were investigating. FBI spokesman Peter D. Lee said documents related to the search had been sealed.

Last week, Solyndra abruptly announced that it was ceasing operations and laying off 1,100 employees, a move the company attributed to intense foreign competition and a "global oversupply of solar panels." The company filed for bankruptcy Tuesday.

Solyndra spokesman Dave Miller said the federal raid came as a surprise but that the company was "fully cooperating" with investigators.

He said he did not know what the federal agents were looking for but speculated it could be related to the $535-million loan guarantee, of which the company drew $527 million.

A skeleton team of about 100 employees is still working at the factory during a "wind-down" process, Miller said.

The raid came about 16 months after Obama visited Solyndra and praised the federal government's investments in clean energy and other sectors.
It's also been revealed that company officials from Solyndra made no less than 20 trips to the White House between March 2009 and April 2011, underscoring the cozy relationship between the company and the Obama Administration.

In late May 2011, the White House highlighted Solyndra as a success story thanks to the 2009 stimulus- also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act- in a short video on the White House website.



It was also reported on Friday that officials from the Administration and Department of Energy sat in on Solyndra's company meetings.
The Energy Department was keeping a close eye on Solyndra during those crucial months – sitting in on board meetings as an observer as part of the loan restructuring, iWatch News and ABC reported Thursday. That raises key questions: Did DOE miss obvious warning signs of the company's troubles in the final months before its collapse?
Last month, after receiving close to $60 million in aid from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts before moving their facilities to China, Evergreen Solar filed for bankruptcy protection. Less than a week later, Intel spinoff SpectraWatt had also filed for bankruptcy.

[Hat tip- Gateway Pundit]

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Not a Good Month For Subsidized Solar Companies

As it turns our, August 2011 has been less than kind to American solar manufacturers.

After taking nearly $60 million in subsidies from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and then bailing for China, Evergreen Solar filed for bankruptcy on August 15.

More recently, a San Francisco-area manufacturer of solar panels sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, shuttering its plant and abruptly laying off 1100 workers. President Obama toured the Fremont, CA facilities of Solyndra Inc back in May 2010 to promote government investments in renewable energy. The company had also received $535 million in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy.

Intel spinoff Spectra Watt filed for bankruptcy protection on August 19 at US Banruptcy court in Poughkeepsie, NY. The company had moved from Hillsboro, OR to Hopewell Jct, NY in 2009. The manufacturer of photovoltaic cells recieved roughly $8 million in subsidies after its startup and another $91 milion from private investors.

Meanwhile, the House Energy Committee has requested that documents and correspondence between the White House, Solyndra and the company's investors be turned over.
"How did this company, without maybe the best economic plan, all of a sudden get to the head of the line?" Representative Fred Upton (R MI-6) told ABC News in an interview this week. "We want to know who made this decision ... and we're not going to stop until we get those answers."

White House officials have said in interviews that they did not intervene in the Solyndra deal or others benefiting companies backed by supporters of the president. Yet the administration, from Obama to the Department of Energy, has very publicly praised the loan guarantee.

In 2009, the Obama administration hailed the Solyndra loan as the first in a series of federal infusions for "green energy" firms that held the potential to clean up the environment and create jobs. But earlier this week, Solyndra abruptly closed its doors, announced it would file for bankruptcy and laid off more than 1,100 workers.

While Energy Department officials steadfastly vouched for Solyndra -- even after an earlier round of layoffs raised eyebrows -- other federal agencies and industry analysts for months questioned the viability of the company.
A May 2011 Center for Public Integrity investigative report raised questions on whether or not the Obama Administration bypassed procedural steps meant to protect taxpayers while approving the $535 million loan guarantee.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Another Day, Another Heavily Subsidized 'Green Energy' Plant Shuts Down

This time it's in California by the San Francisco Bay area. Employees working the evening shift at Solyndra's Fremont, CA plant were met by the CEO who gave them the news as they were coming off of their shift Wednesday morning.
Solar-cell maker Solyndra announced Wednesday that it will close its remaining Fremont factory, lay off its 1,100 employees and file for bankruptcy.

The news marked an abrupt end for a company once considered among the most innovative in a fast-changing industry. The bankruptcy also represents a high-profile failure for a federal stimulus program that gives loan guarantees to green-tech manufacturers.

Solyndra was the first company to win one of the guarantees, receiving $535 million in 2009 to build its second factory in Fremont less than a mile from the company's original plant. Both President Obama and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the new plant, citing it as a symbol of the nation's economic recovery and commitment to a green economy.

But Solyndra, whose solar modules are thin tubes rather than flat panels, struggled to compete against a flood of low-priced solar cells pouring out of heavily subsidized factories in China
Solyndria had backed out of a proposed IPO on 2010 as well. As far back as February, Congress had been probing into how exactly Solyndria secured the $535 million in financeial aid.

Earlier this month, Evergreen Solar- which had recieved more than $58 million in financial aid from the State of Massachusetts- filed for bankruptcy.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Heavily Subsidised Solar Company Bails on Massachusetts, Files for Bankruptcy

A solar panel factory in Devens, MA which was held up by the Patrick Adminsitration as a model 'green business' and recieved $58 million in financial aid from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has filed for bankruptcy on Monday.

Evergreen Solar [NASDAQ: ESLR] announced earlier this year that they were closing their Devens facility and shifting production to Wuhan China.
In January, after Evergreen announced it would close the Devens factory, Patrick told the Herald he was disappointed in the job losses but did not regret making the investment.

“I think we did what we could have and should have,” he told the Herald.

In March, during a state Senate hearing that explored the value of tax incentives for Bay State businesses, Evergreen CEO Michael El-Hillow said the company had “earned” 85 percent of the taxpayer benefits it received because of the jobs it originally created.

Evergreen warned investors back in April that it was burning through cash because of slow sales, falling solar-panel prices and weak proceeds from the sale of Devens factory assets.

“Chapter 11 will provide Evergreen Solar with the ability to maximize returns for our stakeholders through the proposed sale process,” El-Hillow said in a statement. “Importantly, we expect to continue our technology development without interruption during Chapter 11 and the sale process.”
Shares of Evergreen have been trading so low this year that they're in danger of being de-listed from the NASDAQ.

The quasi-public state run MassDevelopment is among the top creditors and is owed $1.5 million by Evergreen.