Sadly, Tioga Energy has joined the List of Deceased Solar Companies.
Tioga, a VC-funded commercial solar developer, is winding down its business, becoming another casualty of the solar market shakeout.
Downstream commercial is perhaps a more challenging market than the thriving residential solar business of SolarCity or Sunrun.
Paul Detering, Tioga's longtime CEO, told GTM, "Our approach to the commercial DG space required a strong (big) balance sheet, and we went out to the market for that in the second half of 2012. A couple of months ago, when it became clear that we were not going to close on a transaction in a timely fashion, we decided to go ahead and sell the operating and pipeline assets in an orderly fashion and wind down the operations of the company. That is in progress and going well. The assets are performing very well and there is a lot of interest in strong, well performing operating assets."
Detering praised his team for earning customer trust and building overperforming projects.
One of Tioga's projects brought 3.3 megawatts of solar to 30 sites across New Jersey’s Union County, spanning schools, libraries, and a community center in a large public-private partnership. All 30 of the installations survived Hurricane Sandy.
Tioga had received more than $44 million in funding from MEMC, NGEN Partners, Nth Power and Draper Fisher Jurvetson since its founding in 2007.