Thin-film Organic Solar PV Maker Konarka Technologies Files for Chapter 7

Jennifer Runyon, Managing Editor, RenewableEnergyWorld.com
June 04, 2012 | 19 Comments

On Friday, Massachusetts-based Konarka Technologies, a thin-film solar manufacturing company, announced that it was filing for bankruptcy protection, bringing the total number of solar companies that have gone out of business in the past year to sixteen.

Under Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the company will cease to operate and a trustee will begin the process of liquidating the company’s assets in order to pay off creditors, who must submit their claims to bankruptcy court.

Howard Berke, chairman, president and CEO of Konarka called the filing a “tragedy” for the development of solar energy in America as well as for the company’s investors and employees. More than 80 employees will lose their jobs as a result of the bankruptcy.

Konarka received a $1.5 million grant from the state of Massachusetts in 2003, which was personally delivered by then-governor Mitt Romney. Romney is now under fire for the speech he made when delivering the grant in which he reportedly called for more money to be poured into the renewable energy sector. “The trust fund has been growing for years, and I believe now is the time to refocus its assets in such a manner that it can become a major economic springboard for the Commonwealth by focusing on job creation in the renewable energy sector,” he said. Several political analysts are calling Konarka’s bankruptcy Romney’s very own Solyndra.

Berke and Alan Heeger, the winner of the Nobel Prize for his work in conductive polymers, founded Konarka in 2001. The company is known for its photo-reactive polymer material invented by Heeger. Konarka’s proprietary material can be printed or coated onto flexible substrates using roll-to-roll manufacturing, similar to the way newspaper is printed on large rolls of paper.

Among the company's assets are over hundreds of owned and licensed patents and patent applications in the field of solar energy and a high-end manufacturing plant in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

According to the company press release, several large international companies including some from China have expressed interest in acquiring Konarka.

19 Comments

Bob "The Clean Energy Guy" Mitchell
June 8, 2012

Sandcanyongal: Thank you for bringing that article to my attention. It addressed something that is kind of a "dirty little secret" in the renewable energy world. That is, that we aren't being as environmentally responsible as we should be. Now of course there are a couple of HUGE BUTTTTs here..the first but is that you have to put it in perspective! I don't know if the author's figures are exactly correct, but it is true that pv panel manufacturing does result in harmful greenhouse gas emissions. That said, the entire life cycle emissions attributable to PV panels is approximately 89% less than that of fossil fuels. Also, the specific emissions that he refers to are still very small, so like anything that starts small and is growing, the growth rate may be high, but the TOTALITY of the situation is that there really isn't THAT much being emitted. That's not to say that these emissions shouldn't be addressed. And this is particularly true in countries, such as China, that don't regulate their industry's pollution all that well. Another "but" is that as solar cell technologies are being developed, they are becoming much more efficient, both in terms of energy and materials being consumed. These increases in efficiency will lesson these emissions on a per cell basis. That's not to say though that these emissions won't go up in the aggregate, but we will be getting a lot more bang for our emissions buck with more solar cells being manufactured. Does that make sense? So, again, you have to put this sort of thing in perspective. Be it wind, solar, coal, oil or natural gas, ALL forms of energy generation come at a cost. The trick is in minimizing those costs while at the same time being able to power our society. If you care to read further, here is a scientific study of the issue that I found very informative http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es071763q Bob "The Clean Energy Guy" Mitchell

Penny Melko
June 8, 2012

This was in redorbit today about fabrication emissions. Is it possible that solar components aren't on the other side of the fence of green development. www (dot) redorbit (dot) com/news/business/1112547107/solar_cells_linked_to_greenhouse_gases_over_23000_times_worse/

ANONYMOUS
June 7, 2012

The solar electric will go forward but from LED lighting, LED t.v. developments, OLED t.v., lasers, computers, and with PV on the trailing edge. There is more engineering development and money with television, computers, and PV will trail but get driven by the others. Solar moore's law is every 5 years 1/2 the price. As oil goes higher and PV electric down electric will take over. Mass transit is electric and be used more in the city. Maybe gravity driven trains with hydraulic lifts at the end (elevators also) and we will have electric cars to get to the subway.

Bob "The Clean Energy Guy" Mitchell
June 7, 2012

Sandcanyongal: You're right, people aren't taking this issue seriously enough and unfortunately there is a lot of propaganda being pumped out there by the fossil fuel industry that contributes to people being confused. Now, while wind power has it's downsides, such as the fact that wind energy production doesn't do a very good job of matching up with demand, as well as issues with intermittentcy, these issues can be engineered around by beefing up the grid, adding gas leveling and peaking plants. Also, a host of utility scale electrical storage technologies are getting close to being able to be implemented. To your point that wind isn't truly a clean energy source, I also have to disagree. While it does take a fair amount of resources to build a utility scale wind turbine, it's energy payback is still within the first 3 to 5 years. True, the metals used in construction have to be mined, but so would the metals used in a coal fired or natural gas plant. So, as long as we need the energy, those effects are a wash. Also, wind turbines have a remarkably small footprint of only about .25 of an acre per wind turbine. The space between the turbines remains available for other uses such as farming or ranching. And while I would agree that we shouldn't place wind farms in 'wildlands', the truth of the matter is that most 'wildlands' don't have access to the transmission capacity needed for a wind farm, so this isn't generally an issue. To address your last two points, wind farms are under the same archeological requirements as any other development, so if you know of any projects that are violating them, you should bring that to the attention of the authorities. Regarding the Condor and other endangered species, wind farms are very much subject to the endangered species act and while some 'takings' of birds can be permitted, it's not a casual thing that is done lightly! Bob 'The Clean Energy Guy' Mitchell

Penny Melko
June 7, 2012

You and I don't sweep anything under the carpet because most people are so confused about whether climate change is real or not many are lulled into tuning out. All the signals from the people with the voting power, Congress, the executive office, state Governors and local government is that it is still business as usual. A classic example is industrial wind energy. I live in the Tehachapi Pass and can walk out my door and see dozens upon dozens of turbines. From a distance they look kinda cool, slowly rotating way up on the hills. Up close in another, more sinister view of the reality. They're not clean energy at any level. Just the mining and manufacturing process tosses this idea out the door. Sacrificing our wildlands isn't acceptable. The wind projects cover area 20 to 30 square miles. The destruction of those areas is 100%. At one of the new projects called North Sky River, ancient Indian bone are dug up with each scoop of the massive shovels. They are 16,000 years old. "Green" to me means sustainable, non-destructive, gentle on the landscape. Here in California condor country, the sacrifice is dismantling of the endangered species act so investors and make big bucks. Somewhere along this road, we have to get honest. It won't happen until the people demand it without exception. At some point man needs to evolve past this "bad monkey" psychology. Greed is good even if it kills us all.

Bob "The Clean Energy Guy" Mitchell
June 6, 2012

SandCanyongal: To answer at least part of your question, right now solar manufacturers in the US and in other developed countries are having a hard time making a go of things due to the fact that foreign made panels have become so inexpensive. This is especially true with the thin film manufactures, such as Konarka and Solyndra. It's just very difficult to compete with crystalline panels made overseas when their cost of labor is so much less expensive. BillP37, I haven't read that article (yet), but I can tell you that the "green" revolution isn't going anywhere! "What It's All About" is the fact that we've reached a point where we are going to have to address the environmental costs that came with fossil fuels. Both climate change or ocean acidification are matters that we sweep under the carpet at our own peril! Not to mention that fossil fuels are a finite resource and we're quickly getting to the point (or have maybe already passed it) where we won't be able to produce sufficient quantities in any kind of economically acceptable way to meet demand. And even if this wasn't the case, the facts are that fossil fuels can't compete on a cost basis when all factors, such as the 120 BILLION dollars a year in health and environmental costs, are factored in. Bob "The Clean Energy Guy" Mitchell

Penny Melko
June 6, 2012

@former-employee. Thank you for the eloquent answer.

Former Employee
June 6, 2012

As a former employee, let me clarify some misconceptions. Konarka was nothing like Solyndra. MA gave 1.5M about 10 years ago to Konarka. Since that initial seed investment, private companies (mostly foreign) invested over 140M. Taxpayers were not "30% shareholders" in Konarka, as the largest shareholder was a foreign oil company that invested 45M (only earning them 22% of the company). The technology was groundbreaking, and the potential applications were impressive. Unfortunately, Konarka fell victim to over-promising/under-delivering to private investors. But polictically speaking, the money it received from MA, was multiplied many time over, and reinvested into the economy.

Penny Melko
June 6, 2012

This all would be a simple case of failed management except the you and I represent the 30% stakeholdings in this company and any others receiving subsidies and grants for development of these technologies into usable products. These aren't supposed to be experiments and r & d disasters. 16 of them now? It about time to step back and look over where oversight and accountability for taxpayer money went wrong. It is obvious that the Department of Energy and our government is causing waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds.

william payne
June 5, 2012

Google 'Not Easy Being Green, But It Sure Has Proven Expensive' By Jonah Goldberg / Syndicated Columnist on Mon, Jun 4, 2012 It was interesting while it lasted. But it looks like the "green revolution" has entered the long slide into "What was all that about?"

Penny Melko
June 5, 2012

Does anyone know why they failed? Their bio is stellar. What the article stated is that China is interested in buying the company. This is bad. What happens is that they also acquire all the patents. "Berke and Alan Heeger, the winner of the Nobel Prize for his work in conductive polymers, founded Konarka in 2001. The company is known for its photo-reactive polymer material invented by Heeger. Konarka's proprietary material can be printed or coated onto flexible substrates using roll-to-roll manufacturing, similar to the way newspaper is printed on large rolls of paper. Among the company's assets are over hundreds of owned and licensed patents and patent applications in the field of solar energy and a high-end manufacturing plant in New Bedford, Massachusetts."

Bob "The Clean Energy Guy" Mitchell
June 5, 2012

While I would love to jump on the irony of Mitt having done almost the exact same thing with this company that Obama did with Solyndra (other than magnitude), I really can't because of the basic reason that the government is involved in renewable energy R&D in the first place. That is, because it's a new and risky business to be in!!! If it wasn't, then the private markets would have stepped up and financed both of these operations. Now that said and as was pointed out by Mr. Jackson, that company had a 10 year run employing people and they advanced solar technology. Also, even if 100 other companies who are currently working on solving our energy problems go belly up, you never know when somebody will hit that home run and bring in a figurative 'gusher' that turns out to be a game changer. Even if we don't hit the home run, with enough singles, doubles and an occasional stolen base, we'll be playing 'Whitey ball' and the companies that failed along the way will just be footnotes in renewable energy history. Bob 'The Clean Energy Guy' Mitchell

Michael Marullo
June 5, 2012

Businesses fail for a variety of reasons, most of which are NOT political, and perhaps surprisingly, also NOT usually technical in nature. Most businesses fail - as 'rich-barbarics-33637' points out - b/c of a bad and/or poorly executed market strategy, and especially if that strategy is based on politics rather than a sound business plan. All this stuff about Solyndra, Konarka, et al is mainly political nonsense and is not a harbinger of anything except what happens when markets fluctuate, someone engages in low-ball pricing (and it happens here too - it doesn't have to be another country!), or a technological leap renders previous products obsolete, just to name a few of the many factors that determine market success or failure. There are elements of all of these in the solar market, so let's get off the politics and onto the real issues of solving our multitude of energy problems, keeping in mind that there are NO SILVER BULLETS. An all-inclusive plan will eventually win out over these cavalier attempts to single out shale oil/gas, wind, solar, coal, or whatever the pet approach is (politically) as the panacea. There isn't any such thing, so get over it, and let's move on to the REAL issues at hand!

Greg Morgan
June 5, 2012

As to the comparison between "Obama's" Solyndra and "Romney's" Konarka, it does seem that the comparison fails greatly due to the difference in magnitude between the two--Solyndra at $500 million being 333 times the $1.5 million of Konarka. Taking the relative size of the US (~$3 trillion)and MA (~$30 billion) budgets into account, the Solyndra venture affected about 3.3 times the affected population's money. And, in essence, both Romney and Obama seem to be working from the same book: it's OK to spend public money in attempting to boost economy and to bring affordable health-care to those in need.The difference seems to be which one accepts the charge, and which one tries to lie his way around it.

Viido Polikarpus
June 5, 2012

sandcanyongal has it right as does rich-barbarics-33637 the market hasnt established itself and the fossil fuel industry is doing all it can to discredit any advances

JACKSON MICHAEL
June 5, 2012

'Romney's very own Solyndra' .... are we serious??? Does that mean $1.5M in 2003 is equivalent to $500M in 2010? Also, Konarka had a nearly 10 year run and, if it was up to 80 employees, also returned something to the Massachusetts economy during those 10 years.

Rich Barbarics
June 5, 2012

Usually companies going bankrupt have failed in marketing strategy. There is always a niche market to satisfy but it takes thinkers beyond those whose who feel a new, bigger billboard or clever adwords listing will do the trick.

Penny Melko
June 5, 2012

The reason they're going out of business is that they are selling to the wrong market. Perhaps if us shareholders, the people who are paying 30% of the bill actually received benefit instead of investors and energy companies the companies would thrive. The place for solar is on rooftops at the source of use, not in our deserts and replacing valuable farmland. Instead, look at the obvious - industrial energy companies, strictly profit driven, are in the faces of the PUC in every state to hold on to all of us staying on the grid. The U.S. is nearly bankrupt in the hands of energy giants and bankrupting these companies. Rooftop solar at the source of use is what the people want, not $400 - 500 dollar energy bills every month that have us in financial slavery. Every time an American solar company goes bankrupt it screams politics, not scientific advancement.

Brian Julin
June 4, 2012

Wow. Crickets from all the usual suspects who show up to gloat and dance on the grave of every failure of an RE company. Gee I wonder why.

(Rommunism: a system of government in which all wealth is redistributed evenly among Mitt Romney.)

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Jennifer Runyon

Jennifer Runyon is managing editor of RenewableEnergyWorld.com coordinating, writing and/or editing columns, features, news stories and blogs for the publications. She also serves as conference chair of Solar Power-Gen Conference and Exhibition...