Meyer Burger announced today that it was suspending planned construction of a silicon solar cell production facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as it is “no longer financially viable for the company.”
The Swiss technology company first announced plans for a cell factory in July 2023. The 2-GW operations in a former Intel semiconductor fabrication plant would support its solar panel assembly facility in Goodyear, Arizona, which officially began production in June. Instead, Meyer Burger said its existing cell production facility in Thalheim, Germany, will remain fully operational and continue to be the company’s core solar cell supplier.
“Under the current market conditions, these [German] solar cells are the most economical option for supplying the module production in Goodyear,” the company said in a press release.
Meyer Burger specializes in heterojunction technology (HJT), a combination of crystalline silicon and amorphous silicon thin-film. The company shut down its German solar panel production facility earlier this year due to the collapse of the European panel manufacturing market.
Meyer Burger also announced today it would not scale its Arizona solar panel assembly facility beyond 1.4 GW, but noted the building could support 2 GW or more.