In a strategic move, American solar power company SunPower Corporation has sold off its Commercial & Industrial Solutions (CIS) business to its majority stakeholder TotalEnergies for a total value of $250 million, to become a pure residential solar business.
TotalEnergies owns a 50.83% stake in SunPower which the latter said is not expected to come down with this acquisition deal that's expected to close in early Q2/2022.
SunPower had been looking for a strategic exit from the CIS business to be able to focus on residential solar. It follows its sale of the 4.7 GW strong utility business in September 2018 to Clearway Energy Group. It also spun-off its cell manufacturing business to create Maxeon Solar Technologies, headquartered in Singapore, and afterwards closed its last module factory in the US (see SunPower To Shutter Hillsboro Manufacturing Facility).
"The sale enables SunPower to focus on creating a superior residential experience, increase our investment in product and digital innovation, and reach more homeowners," said SunPower CEO Peter Faricy.
SunPower recently said it identified cracking issues in some factory installed connectors within 3rd party commercial equipment supplied tot it, which it will replace. Cowen Analyst Jeffrey Osborne had said SunPower would need to resolve the intended sale of the CIS division (see SunPower's Preliminary Q4/2021 Financials).
For TotalEnergies, this transaction is aligned with its plans to develop distributed generation business that currently adds up to around 500 MW operational capacity globally. It will now expand in the B2B space within US and develop over 100 MW additional capacity annually. In the US, the French company targets to develop 4 GW solar capacity by 2025.
.png?w=50&fm=png){kind=logo}