Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The rise and fall of Eurener

When Pamela and I moved to Bigastro there was no Eurener here. I recall that the building of the factory alongside the bypass was controversial because that was land not designated for industrial purposes. That was in 2007, 10 years after the company first formed.

Eurener specialised in making solar panels at a time when demand for them was high. With an annual production capacity of 90 MW Eurener manufactured monocrystalline, polycrystalline and glass-glass photovoltaic modules in their factories in Bigastro and Portugal.

They had lucrative government contracts as well as supplying panels to companies and private individuals keen to save money by using renewable energy. 90% of the production was for the export market.

Having opened their factory in Bigastro, they rapidly expanded by taking over further premises in the town,  by operating 24 hours a day and even creating a showroom for their products in the Plaza de la Constitution.

Their problems though arose when cheaper Chinese imports started to flood the market. In 2010 they had an income of 54.09m which dropped to 35.98 the following year. They  applied for voluntary bankruptcy 25th September 2013 and at the same time planned to move to Latin America and develop project there.

Six months after they applied for bankrupcy, the company threw in the towel. The factory in Bigastro is now closed, there are weeds growing in the gravel, one of the panels on the huge billboard is broken and the fountain is empty of water. This is a sad state of affairs because Eurener used to employ 150 people.

No comments: