Powin Energy’s future hangs in the balance with 250 jobs at stake

US battery energy storage provider Powin Energy could be preparing for a final curtain call.

The Tualatin, Oregon-based company submitted a notice of potential cessation of business operations to local and state officials last week. Under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, companies with 100 or more employees must notify employees at least 60 days ahead of any closure or job layoffs.    

Powin explained in the letter that a layoff of nearly 250 employees (including the “C-suite” senior executives) will occur on or before July 28 if “present business circumstances do not improve.” The announcement comes mere weeks after a round of layoffs in late April and the company’s launch of a new 6.26 MWh containerized lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery with increased energy density.  

The announcement also noted that if business does cease, all affected employees will have their employment permanently terminated.  

Powin’s not the only Oregon-based battery company facing headwinds, with iron flow battery company ESS, Inc., also sharing an ominous report with the Securities and Exchange Commission a few days prior to Powin’s announcement.  

ESS warned that it expected to shutter its Wilsonville, Oregon site within three days after failing to secure enough funding to delay or stop a shutdown. Though ESS subsequently received eleventh-hour funding from an unnamed source, hours before the proposed closure, the company’s long-term operations hang in the balance even as they continue operations in Wilsonville.  

Both Powin and ESS entered the storage space within the last 15 years. Powin was founded in the late 1980s; it only shifted its focus from contract manufacturing to storage in 2010. It has since become the third-largest battery provider in the United States by megawatt-hours deployed.  

Still, a long history doesn’t make legacy storage companies immune to tariffs. Powin imports many of its LFP batteries from various Chinese manufacturers, leaving them subject to high import duties.  

“At the end of the day, this business with tariffs is an ‘America Last’ strategy,” Martha Molfetas, a visiting assistant professor at the Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, told pv magazine USA. She said that trade has long served as a way to identify friend from foe.  

By setting these barriers, she said, “We’re walling ourselves off from being a trade partner with the world and that’s going to make things cost more for households and harm American companies.” 

Coupled with an unstable policy environment that’s left other clean energy leaders – like a subsidiary of Sunnova, and LiCycle – filing for bankruptcy in recent weeks, Powin’s looming closure could be only the beginning of worsening unsteadiness.  

“I’m not surprised these companies are struggling right now,” Molfetas added, “Especially without government incentives and in light of recent geopolitical and economic shifts.” 

Powin did not respond to a request for comment from pv magazine USA.

From pv magazine USA.