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Less than two years after coming to America, Edgewood-based SRI North America is finished.
One of four subsidiaries of Germany-based SRI Holdings AG, SRI N.A. will be dissolving its business in December, company CEO Stephan Rottach said. The move follows the parent company's filing for bankruptcy in July.
Rottach is the sole survivor of SRI North America, a contract manufacturer of solar equipment that once had 18 employees and big plans to grow to over 100 staffers within three years.
"Our setup was such that we kept overhead as low as possible, by not building up our engineering team and instead using the team we have in Germany," Rottach said. "When they filed for bankruptcy, they were no longer legally allowed to give me support for anything, including engineering and IT. It was basically the end of the company."
SRI North America isn't alone in its dissolution. Chinese companies have created an oversupply of solar panels and components that has dramatically lowered the price for these materials, forcing many worldwide solar manufacturers, like Solyndra and SolarWorld, out of business. Even corporate giant Sharp Electronics has announced it will be shuttering its decade-old solar module assembly facility in Tennessee by March 2013, where it employs about 400 workers.
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