SUNPOWER CORPORATION

Industry : Renewable Energy

Founded : 1985, 37 years ago
Founder : Richard Swanson
Number of employees : 3,660 (2021)
Headquarters : San Jose, California, United States
CEO : Peter Faricy (Apr 2021–)
Revenue : 132 crores USD (2021)
Subsidiaries : Blue Raven Solar, LLC, SunPower Italia S.r.l., MORE
Website : www.sunpower.com
 SunPower is an American provider of photovoltaic solar energy generation systems
and battery energy storage products, primarily for residential customers. The
company, headquartered in San Jose, California, was founded in 1985 by Richard
Swanson, an electrical engineering professor from Stanford University.

History
SunPower acquired Sunray Renewable Energy, a solar panel company based in Italy, for
$277 million in 2010, in order to expand in Europe. The following year, SunPower cut back
production due to an overall market decline in solar power purchases. SunPower also announced
the French oil and gas company Total was acquiring a majority interest in SunPower for
$1.37 billion. In 2012, SunPower founder Richard Swanson retired, though he continued to serve
on the SunPower advisory board.
In 2019, SunPower announced it was going to spin-off its manufacturing division into a separate
business in Singapore named Maxeon Solar Technologies. As part of the deal, Tianjin
Zhonghuan Semiconductor Co invested $298 million for a 29% interest in Maxeon. The
remaining SunPower business became focused on services, installation, batteries, and other
products. In 2021, former CEO Tom Werner retired and Peter Faricy took his place as CEO of
SunPower.
In February 2022, SunPower investor TotalEnergies purchased SunPower's commercial and
industrial divisions for $250 million, as part of SunPower's transition to focusing on residential
installations. In May 2022, SunPower announced a partnership with IKEA to sell to customers in
their California stores

o Product and services

 SunPower designs and markets solar power-related products and services. For example, it
sells, installs, and finances panels, batteries, mounts, and software. Its products are
known for being more expensive, but producing energy more efficiently than competing
products. 
 SunPower is often used when there is a limited amount of space for the panels, such as on
rooftops.
 Ordinarily, the electrical contacts are on the front of a solar panel, facing the sun. The front of
SunPower's panels channel the light to electrical contacts on the back of the panels,
reducing the amount of sunlight that is reflected, rather than turned into energy.
 The company first started leasing solar panels in 2011 and started a pilot project for battery
products around 2014.