Louisville solar company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

LOUISVILLE — SunTech Drive LLC, a maker of controllers for small-scale solar grids, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The Louisville company claimed that it had just less than $200,000 in assets and $6.67 million in debts, according to its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Colorado on Monday.

In a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, businesses continue to operate as they try to reorganize their debts and emerge from the process as a healthier company as opposed to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, through which assets are liquidated to repay creditors.

American solar companies in general have struggled due to the ongoing economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A mid-May report from the national trade group Solar Energy Industries Association estimates that Colorado companies have shed about a third of solar jobs and are on track to miss out on installing enough panels to generate 33 megawatts of power in the second quarter of this year.

SunTech is the second Boulder County-based solar company to declare bankruptcy in recent weeks behind Rack-Em-Up Inc., a Boulder installer of ground-level solar panels that filed for liquidation in mid-May.

SunTech did not respond to a request for comment left on its telephone line Tuesday afternoon.