March 9th, 2011 Evergreen Solar Inc. (Marlboro, Massachusetts, U.S.) announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2010, reporting heavy losses related to the closing of its PV wafer, cell and module manufacturing facility in Devens, Massachusetts. Also on March 9th, 2011 Hilco Industrial LLC (Farmington Hills, Michigan, U.S.) announced that it has been appointed as the exclusive agent to handle the sale of the Devens facility.

“The decision to close the Devens facility was the direct result of rapid and dramatic changes in the underlying market that have taken place since the facility first began operations," stated Evergreen President and CEO Michael El-Hillow. "We believe we are now better positioned to facilitate a rapid transition to a strategic supplier of low cost multi-crystalline silicon wafers by virtue of our proprietary wafer technology.”

Evergreen reports net loss of USD 411 million in 4Q 2011, USD 465 million over the full year

While Evergreen Solar saw a 3.2% increase in revenues during the fourth quarter of 2010 to USD 89.3 million, it reported an operating loss of USD 399 million and a net loss of USD 411 million. Evergreen attributes these losses primarily to the write-down of pre-paid inventory resulting from the decision to close the Devens facility, as well as the impairment of long-lived assets and countervailing duties assessed on the company's imported aluminum frames.

Evergreen's losses in the fourth quarter left the company's 2010 results in the red. While the company's revenues increased by 25.1% in 2010 to USD334 million, it posted an operating loss of USD451 million and a net loss of USD 465 million over the full year 2010, mostly as a result of fourth quarter 2010 losses.

Evergreen shifts production to China

These losses are not new. After many quarters of negative income, Evergreen Solar gradually moved production to its new facility in Wuhan, China, which began production in the summer of 2010, and on January 11th, 2011 announced that it would shut down the Devens facility.

The company also announced a recapitalization plan on December 6th, 2010, which has since been accepted by the company's shareholders.

Devens facility assets represent "rare opportunity"

Hilco Industrial states that the Devens assets represent a "rare opportunity" for a company seeking to develop PV manufacturing capacity at a greatly reduced cost. The facility has a rated output of 160MW per year, and Hilco states that the actual output is over 180MW annually.

The original cost of the facility was more than USD 425 million in 2009.

2011-03-11| Courtesy: Evergreen Solar Inc., Hilco Industrial LLC  | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

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