SunPower Corp., one of America’s largest solar-panel makers, is giving up its manufacturing business to focus on installing rooftop solar systems.
The company is spinning off its panel production operations into a new company, Maxeon Solar, that will be based in Singapore with factories in France, Malaysia, Mexico and the Philippines, according to a statement Monday. As part of the deal, a Chinese supplier of silicon wafers will make a $298-million equity investment, valuing Maxeon at $1.03 billion.
SunPower described the move as a natural evolution of the maturing solar business. Panel makers once had to help create their own market by installing the equipment they manufactured. Now the market is big enough for companies to specialize in one or the other. First Solar Inc., the largest U.S. panel maker, walked away in September from the business of building solar farms to focus on manufacturing. SunPower is moving in the opposite direction.
“As the industry gets bigger, you get companies that specialize,” SunPower Chief Executive Officer Tom Werner said in an interview. “It’s part of the mainstreaming of solar.”
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