Veteran roofer and solar installer PetersenDean filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June with the intention of reorganizing its business and debt.
The California-based company released a statement Tuesday citing the effects of the coronavirus pandemic as the motivation for the claim. The company’s leads had dropped nearly 70 percent between March and April, PetersenDean told Greentech Media in late May. In the next month, the declines continued, with leads dropping 87 percent from March to May, although the month had not yet ended when the company offered up this figure.
Though PetersenDean’s solar business holds less than a 1 percent share of the solar market in the U.S., the company has maintained a more significant foothold in states such as California and Hawaii. But well before the coronavirus outbreak, its overall volumes had been steadily declining for years, according to tracking by Wood Mackenzie. Installations peaked in 2016, which was a record year for the residential solar industry at the time (since beat by 2019).
“This shows that the economic impacts from COVID-19 can severely impact larger regional installers and not just smaller ones,” said Bryan White, a WoodMac solar analyst.
Source: Greentech Media