A comprehensive review of increasing material and logistics costs, along with severe supply constraints and their impact on its solar business has led the South Korean electronics manufacturer LG Electronics to announce it will leave the global solar panel business for good.
Instead, it plans to use its experience to concentrate on growth sectors including energy storage systems and home energy management. It will continue to produce solar panels at its Huntsville, Alabama in the US where it assembles modules till Q2/2022 to maintain adequate inventory for future service support.
LG produces high-efficient solar cells and modules in Korea and modules at its 550 MW Huntsville, US factory, which opened in 2019. In the January 2021 edition of our TaiyangNews Top Solar Module Efficiency Listing its n-type panel ranked third.
LG Business Solutions (BS) that operates the solar panel business will reorganize the portfolio around Information Technology (IT) and Information Display (ID). It plans to continue supporting the US solar customers 'for years to come' and honor the limited warranty with each product sold.
Affected employees will be accommodated in its other business and manufacturing units, and those leaving the company will be offered severance package.
A year back, Japanese electronics company Panasonic announced its plans to stop producing solar PV products at its factories in Malaysia and Japan, while continuing to sell modules under its brand name but manufactured by its manufacturing partners. While the company itself did not state any specific reason, a report by Nikkei Asia blamed it on fierce competition from Chinese rivals for Panasonic's move (see Panasonic Exiting Solar PV Production Business).