Fremont solar tech firm Solyndra to shut down, lay off hundreds of workers

Solyndra, a Fremont-based solar panel manufacturer that flared then sputtered, abruptly ceased operations on Wednesday and immediately laid off all 1,100 of its workers.

The shutdown marks a high-profile collapse of a company that received more than $1.6 billion in federal and private funding in recent years.

"This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate," Brian Harrison, Solyndra's president and chief executive, said.

The company received $535 million in taxpayer money from the U.S. Department of Energy and $1.1 billion in private venture capital funding.

"We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed," said Dan Leistikow, a spokesman for the Department of Energy. "But we can't stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America's leadership in the global economy."

Solyndra workers who were laid off on Wednesday were dismissed without layoff packages.

"They are getting no severance," said Dave Miller, a Solyndra spokesman. "They are getting nothing."

Wednesday, a stream of workers steadily filed out of the building as the lugged boxes packed with their belongings. Security guards steered them to a specific building to receive dismissal notices.

"It's devastating," Campbell resident Matthew Henry said. "There was no compassion."

Henry had just bought a new car and signed a lease on a new apartment after working at Solyndra for three years.

"It hurts," said Angel Poma, who lives in Woodside. "I was happy working for this company, and I learned a lot."

Benjamin Pham, a San Jose resident, was left to ponder the loss of his health insurance, along with his job. Pham, his wife and their child were all on a Solyndra health insurance program, which expired along with Wednesday's shutdown.

"They cut off everything,"

Pham said. "Before, when they laid people off, they extended their health insurance."

Solyndra had recently completed construction of a new solar equipment factory that was built and equipped with funds from the federal loan. The company had spent $527 million of the $535 million from the DOE grant.

"We had just installed the new tools," Miller said "We were starting to ramp up production."

Solyndra intends to file a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a federal court in Delaware next week, said Dave Miller, a company spokesman.

"We will try to sell the company or reorganize its finances," Miller said.

Solyndra was founded in 2005 by Chris Gronet, a veteran of Applied Materials who earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University.

President Barack Obama touted Solyndra as a poster child for clean energy after the company received the federal funds.

"Companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future," Obama said during a 2010 visit to the company's Fremont headquarters.

Although Solyndra was buttressed by VC and federal money, the company struggled. Among the challenges that doomed Solyndra: Low-cost Chinese manufacturers backed by large subsidies from the government are building massive factories that have rapidly driven down the price of solar panels and shifted more than 50 percent of production to China.

Yet analysts also noted that Solyndra had failed to curb its manufacturing costs. Industry

watchers pointed out that Solyndra's solar tubes were still about two or three times as expensive as the standard costs for solar manufacturers in the United States.

"This is really disappointing," said Christina Briggs, Fremont's economic development manager. "It's clear that manufacturing is still struggling in this economy, especially in the face of strong global competition