General Electric solar branch in Aurora: About half of employees to be laid off

Last week, as news was breaking that Colorado-based manufacturer Abound Solar had filed for bankruptcy, a solar branch of General Electric in Aurora was informing its local employees that about half of them would be laid off. Westword learned of these major layoffs — which could affect more than sixty employees — late Tuesday, from a former employee of the company.

This is a major blow for Aurora, which is where the company called GE PrimeStar was planning on opening a large solar-panel manufacturing plant; Governor John Hickenlooper touted the deal at this year’s State of the State address in January.

PrimeStar’s corporate headquarters are located in Arvada, and the company does some additional manufacturing in Michigan. According to our source, current employees are saying that every employee at the Michigan facility — between fifteen and twenty workers — will be laid off, and around sixty in Colorado will be losing jobs.

“The same day Abound announced their bankruptcy, PrimeStar sat the employees down and said they were shutting down the Michigan…operation and that half of the people in Colorado are going to be let go,” the former employee says.

PrimeStar was a local startup that developed its solar energy technology in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden. GE bought the company in 2011 and announced in October of last year that it planned to open a plant in Aurora…

via GE PrimeStar layoffs puts plans for Aurora plant in the shadows – Denver News – The Latest Word.