Carillion believed it was onto a good thing when it purchased EAGA in February of this year and created Carillion Energy Services (CES) to develop a UK solar market. Things looked perfect when CES become the primary installer for Homesun, one of the bigger UK free solar scheme companies. Less than a year later CES has sent a letter to all 4500 employees announcing a 90 day redundancy consultation leaving everyone unsure of the company’s future. Company executives have laid the blame squarely on the government’s tariff review process that has seen significant subsidy reductions in the large scale and domestic solar installations.
Homesun’s CEO, Daniel Green has already intimated his company will begin a plan of redundancies as the changes brought about by Greg Barker’s review have made his company’s business model untenable. The bulk of the CES work was tied to Homesun’s activities and there are fears that the announcements will begin a domino effect that will see similar redundancies announced as the profit margins continue to shrink with reduced subsidy support.
Carillion executives stated the FiT review was much quicker and much sharper than anticipated and did not take into account current business plans which had been based on the original government offerings. Although no official decisions have been made it is estimated the company may shed as many as 1500 staff in the first instance.
