BP Solar Announces Abandonment of Solar PV Business

BPSolar announced the suspension of its solar photovoltaic business while continuing to develop other renewable energy technologies such as wind power and biofuels. The company made a decision to abandon the solar photovoltaic business in December 2011 and informally revealed this information in the following months.

The decision by BP to quit the Australian government's SolarFlagships project formally confirmed the decision. After spending several months trying to restructure the business to maintain profitability, the company’s spokesperson stated that the company’s decision was “not Avoided".

Due to the increasingly “commercialized” market, the spokesman for BP Alternative Energy confirmed that in mid-2011, the company had tried to shift its business focus from the rooftop PV market to the PV plant-scale project. But this move did not bring big changes to BP, so the company decided to completely give up the solar photovoltaic business.

The BP Alternative Energy website posted a statement stating: “BP is winding up the solar energy business. For nearly four decades, BP has been working on the solar photovoltaic industry, so it is very difficult to make this decision. However, the global solar PV market in the past In the years that have changed dramatically, we have not been able to get the necessary returns for our business. Looking at our long history in the field of solar energy, BPSolar has driven the growth of global industries with its leading technologies. We have built a lot of Milestone projects include the latest 32MW Long Island solar photovoltaic power plant project.Over the years, BPSolar installed a total of about 1.6GW of solar photovoltaic projects throughout the world.

The statement also stated that the company will seek suitable partners or buyers for projects such as Long Island Solar PV Power Station. On December 27 last year, BP sold its joint venture with India's Tata Power. As part of the transaction, Tata Power will acquire some of BP's technology use rights until 2013.