Toledo Solar, an Ohio-based manufacturer of thin-film solar modules, announced it will be ending all research and development efforts and winding down operations, effective immediately.
Incorporated in 2019, Toledo Solar claimed to manufacture Cadmium Telluride CdTe (“cad tell”) thin film solar panels and systems via a supply chain sourced from North America at its 100-MW facility in Perrysburg, Ohio. But a lawsuit brought forward by fellow U.S.-based manufacturer First Solar brought Toledo Solar’s sourcing and manufacturing practices into question.
“Unfortunately, we were unable to license certain technology needed to manufacture the Cadmium Telluride panels we were developing for the residential, commercial, and industrial markets we were targeting,” explained Tom Pratt, Managing Director of Applied Business Strategy LLC, and interim President, Treasurer, and Secretary of Toledo Solar. “Once it was determined that we did not have access to the appropriate technology, we pivoted to a different business model, but the hurdles to success were determined to be too high. Ultimately, the Toledo Solar Board determined that there was no viable path to continue the business and they have voted to cease operations.”
Last year, First Solar alleged in a federal lawsuit that Toledo Solar passed off solar panels as its own when the modules actually were made by First Solar. Toledo Solar’s cadmium telluride thin-film solar modules for the residential and commercial sectors were manufactured using the same technology popularized by First Solar for utility-scale applications. Toledo Solar’s manufacturing facility is located 8 miles away from a First Solar plant in Perrysburg, Ohio.
According to the complaint, Toledo Solar allegedly misrepresented that the panels provided for the Ohio’s governor’s mansion were its own products, made in the United States. First Solar said it made the panels in Malaysia in 2018.
The governor’s mansion initially installed First Solar solar panels in 2004. In early 2022, according to the complaint, a representative of the non-profit Green Energy Ohio contacted the company to ask about how to dispose of the old panels as part of an equipment upgrade.
A First Solar representative went to the mansion in the summer of 2022 to retrieve the old panels and noticed new panels were being installed. Those panels allegedly were marked with labels identifying them as “Made in the USA” and manufactured by Toledo Solar as Model Number TS1. The First Solar representative reported seeing imprints and serial numbers that indicated the panels were actually First Solar Series 4 modules manufactured at its facilities in Malaysia.
The lawsuit alleged that Toledo Solar etched a new serial number on the module and replaced First Solar’s junction box with a different one. The lawsuit said the junction box was installed improperly and could cause electrical arcing.
The lawsuit asked the court to issue an injunction stopping Toledo Solar from representing First Solar products as its own. It also asked the court to require Toledo Solar to inform customers who may have bought Toledo Solar products labeled as “Made in the U.S.A.” that were, instead, First Solar products made in Malaysia.
The lawsuit was settled later that year, with confidential terms. Toledo Solar then began a shakeup of its leadership. A new investor-led independent board of directors and leadership team took over day-to-day operations at Toledo Solar, according to a press release issued July 18, 2023. Tom Pratt, managing director of Applied Business Strategy LLC, was appointed president, treasurer, and secretary. Sean Fontenot, Toledo Solar’s lead investor, was the board’s new chairman.
Aaron Bates, who served as Toledo Solar’s CEO before the shakeup, appeared on an episode of Renewable Energy World’s Factor This! podcast in early 2023. He discussed the company’s efforts to rebrand and rise from the solar industry’s crash of the early 2010s, and the misconceptions, or “untruths,” as he put it, about American-made solar modules.
Inadequate trade guardrails to protect domestic manufacturers from being undercut by foreign bad actors have rendered domestic manufacturing of silicon semiconductors for photovoltaics “impossible,” Bates said. “It just is,” Bates said in the podcast. “You can’t have it both ways.”
First Solar is based in Tempe, Arizona and has manufacturing facilities in Ohio, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The company has been manufacturing solar modules at its Perrysburg facilities since 2002.
