Bankrupt DOE Loan Recipient Abound Solar Under Investigation, Panels Suffered “Catastrophic Failure”

Abound Solar, a Department of Energy $400 million loan guarantee recipient that went bankrupt earlier this year, is under investigation by officials in Weld County, Colorado.

The company, which received nearly $70 million in loan funding before payments were cut off by DOE in 2011, also received a $100,000 tax break from the Colorado county in 2010. The county decided not to extend that offer when the company failed to achieve prescribed benchmarks for the tax break.

The county is also seeking nearly $2 million in unpaid property taxes from 2011 and 2012.

Denver’s 7NEWS has confirmed the investigation:

Sources tell 7NEWS that the company’s finances are under scrutiny.

7NEWS obtained internal documents from 2012 that show orders for tens of thousands of replacement solar panels. The orders cite different reasons for the replacements including, “low performance,” “under performance” and “catastrophic failures.”

The orders are for replacements requested after the Department of Energy stopped stimulus money payments to Abound.

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-CO, has announced his intent to issue a letter to DOE “seeking records and information about what it knew while providing money to Abound.”

Gardner told 7NEWS that the document request would be comprehensive.

“We need to know, did the Department of Energy — did they close on the loan when they knew there were technical problems with the product?” Gardner told the station.

The revelation of an investigation into the shuttered solar manufacturer comes less than a week after The Daily Caller News Foundation cited sources that appear to corroborate the issue of faulty, underperforming, and even dangerous solar modules, one of which the outlet showed bursting into flames in a video released with their report:

Via: The Foundry

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