Concentrating Solar Power Solar Millennium: Volker Böhm appointed insolvency administrator

Böhm’s first step will be to review whether it is possible to continue business operations during the preliminary bankruptcy proceedings. If so, he will focus on pre-financing of the insolvency funds to ensure that the employees of the Solar Millennium AG receive their salaries and wages within the legal guidelines.

In the afternoon during a general assembly, the preliminary insolvency administrator informed the employees of the Solar Millennium AG about the situation and the next steps. He will also contact the most important project and business partners of the company in the near future.

Announcing the plans to call in the insolvency administrators in a statement, Solar Millennium reported that “agreement existed" to a large extent on the sale of projects and that "substantial contracts had already been signed".

Solarhybrid AG and First Solar had been expected to form a joint venture (JV) to take over Solar Millennium AG’s US solar project pipeline, including the 1 GW Blythe project.

But the company has failed to conclude the deals, and hasn’t been able to find new investors for its Ibersol 50 MW CSP project in Spain.

"Both transactions would have generated funds beyond the current need for liquidity, which would have laid the foundation for a further development of the company,” Solar Millennium says. But, as the situation has developed, the company bodies felt "impelled" to call in the administrators.

Solar Milennium had been in the process of trying to switch projects (like Blythe) away from CSP to PV – due to the reducing costs of PV in contrast to Parabolic Trough CSP technology. The Solar Millennium AG filed for insolvency in the morning due to substantial projects of the company being postponed.

www.solarmillennium.de