Many trusters – little trust

Back in January, the concrete company Precore filed a claim in court in the amount of four million euros against RPP Solar’s property. This was followed in late April by insolvency proceedings against RPP Solar brought by the logistics firm TMS in the Abrantes civil court. The amount of the claim: 30,000 euros. There is also public knowledge of two drilling companies from the Leiria region that are demanding just under 15,000 euros from RPP Solar.

The Italian distributor Prime Solar is now also taking action through lengthy legal channels from Sicily to the Portuguese civil court. Chief Operating Officer Nadia Aristova finds the “business conduct of RPP Solar more than lacking in credibility.” In mid-October, the Palermo-based company placed an order for 150.19 kilowatt-peak in the “Lynx-6P230″ module range, with delivery scheduled for the end of November. Prime Solar paid “a 15-percent down-payment of around 36,500 euros to RPP Solar.” In mid-November, Aristova received notice that “RPP Solar would not be able to de-liver a single module.” “We were forced to replace the modules for our customers quickly, and at a high price,” she says.

RPP Solar did offer a replacement delivery of LG modules, but as Prime Solar had sold European modules with a ten years product warranty to their clients, Aristova opted for a refund. For months she was reassured that the money would ar-rive within a few weeks. “Finally, they just stopped returning our calls, so we decided to hand the matter over to a local attorney,” explains Aristova. She estimates the damage for Prime Solar at 65,165 euros, including interest and expenses.

Prime Solar is not the only solar company that has something to complain about when it comes to refunds yet to be received. According to information from the industry, RPP Solar has pocketed down-payments totaling over 700,000euros from customers in Belgium, Spain, and Italy. The unsettled claims against RPP Solar now add up to around 7.5 million euros. That’s a sum which managing partner Alexandre Alves doesn’t dispute, but one that he doesn’t see as a future problem. When asked, he asserts reassuringly: “I won’t remain indebted to anyone, not for a single cent.” What he doesn’t understand, he says, is why anyone is questioning RPP Solar’s solvency now. “The company has 107 mil-lion euros in assets, and 7.5 million euros in liabilities,” he stresses. “I don’t see what the cause of concern is.” Alves sees himself as “a victim of a malevolent media campaign staged by the daily newspaper Correio da Manha.” In mid-June he told Diario Econbmico that he was granted a200 million euro funding from foreign banks to finally start production.

More annoying than usefull Given the legal wrangling and disgruntled business partners, the future outlook for RPP Solar seems uncertain. The ambitious one-billion-euro project could end up being a “white elephant” for the entrepreneur, whose previous activity involved shopping center development projects undertaken with his Retail Parks de Portugal holding company. Recalling the Siamese kings’ tradition of bestowing ex-pensive, sacred, light gray elephants on rival princes in order to drive them to financial ruin, a gift that ultimately creates more annoyance than usefulness is known as a “white elephant.” The RPP Solar project, endowed with a generous58 million euros in financial aid and 70million euros in tax bonuses, does not currently have the necessary equity or financing to meet the high expectations.

It’s a bitter truth that has become increasingly apparent to Stephan Ostermann, Country Manager Germany, since RPP Solar’s latest start date fell through in October: “All of us, employees and customers alike, were seemingly blinded by a good final product,” he admits. Forhis project, Alves uses only high-quality components from leading European producers, such as Saint Gobain, Weidmiiller, Siemens, Centrotherm, and 3M.

And business with high-output modulesis going well. In September, on the occasion of a visit to the factory by officials, Alves proudly spoke of “orders worth 73million euros by year’s end.” Ostermann confirms this: “I alone had orders for 49MW, but in my case, there were no cash payments in advance for the German customers.”

Nevertheless, the collaboration with RPP Solar has also turned out to be a “white elephant” of dashed expectations for the sales team. What initially see meda good opportunity to be part of an innovative project turned out to be a potentially damaging endeavor for their professional careers. For several weeks now, their contact data has been missing from the RPP website. When his contract was over at the end of March, the 32-year-oldOstermann seamlessly transitioned to a new job with the Chinese manufacturer Jinko, as regional sales director for Europe. Yet he is not keeping silent: “We are not going to banish the RPP Solar chapter from our resumes,” Ostermann remarks on the conflict of interest in which he and his colleagues find themselves. “In a certain sense, we are blackmailing ourselves.

You don’t normally talk about your employer’s internal goings-on.” It’s a matter of mutual trust, he says, but to a certain extent, the company’s management has abused its employees’ trust. According to Ostermann, for the period from December to March, RPP Solar still owes “the five-member sales team at least 250,000euros for four months’ salary plus out-lays and bonuses.” Ostermann can not provide details on customers’ unsettled claims, however, “due to contractual obligations.” Like the customers left hanging, he says he also received emails week after week announcing that payment was forthcoming. “For me, RPP Solar is one of those projects in the photovoltaics sector in which someone tries to make money without putting their own capital on the table,” says Ostermann today.

Failed subsidies

Despite record subsidies of 128 million euros and the announcement by company head Alves that of the total investment sum of 1,052 million euros, he was “financing 210 million euros out of his own pocket,” the company with the head of a lynx on its company logo doesn’t seem to have the right key to open up the necessary credit lines with the country’s banks, which have been heavily under-financed since the debt crisis. Most recently, the investment agency AICEP declared in May that RPP Solar had not yet received any subsidy payments because the company “had not yet been able to fulfill the contractual eligibility conditions of a bank guarantee.” The audit standards of the national NSRF Structural Fund are strict. They stipulate that the subsidized project must be vested with at least 25 percent equity. In the case of RPP Solar, that means an equity share of at least 224 million euros for a subsidized investment totaling 897 million euros by 2013. But the amount shown in the commercial register records is no-where close. To date, the shareholder duo Alexandre Alves and Irene de Brito have only paid in just under 740,000 euros of the 1.5 million euros of share capital.

But even without the subsidy monies, Alves remains almost stoically optimistic, announcing: “My first and only concern right now is taking care of RPP Solar’s commitments, not a new start date for module production.” Only afterward does he intend – without committing to specific dates – to “reset the odometer at RPP Solar to zero.” In any case, the search for employees, customers, and suppliers will likely require starting from zero.

http://www.solarbtoc.com/blog/portugal-solar-fit-solar-incentives-and-subsidies-2.html

Nota: Boa parte das coisas que nos escondem  sobre a RPP estão aqui. Pedimos desculpa ao leitor por o texto estar na língua do Império. Se houver tempo talvez algum  colaborador nosso o traduza e ponha à disposição do público.

Esperamos divulgar mais coisas sobre isto.

Se Maria do Céu Albuquerque fosse responsável mandava traduzir isto e distribuir aos Vereadores e deputados municipais.

jornal da esta

mas o que prima é a lei da rolha

  educarwordpresse

perguntem ao dr. Belém Coelho.....

Agora também não percebo o comodismo dos jornalistas abrantinos que podem encontrar muita coisa on-line....

Bolas, são V.Exas profissionais.

Até há uma jornalista lusa no twiter que só se dedica (quase) à RPP.....

Quando a coisa rebentar o Armandinho emigra para Lagarelhos.....porque foi um dos que não fiscalizou o contrato com o Alves, entretanto o Barão que se ponha a pau mais as Senhoras Brito. Faltar à palavra das num negócio com um empresário de Palermo é faltar à honra......

Diz o palermitano: In mid-October, the Palermo-based company placed an order for 150.19 kilowatt-peak in the “Lynx-6P230″ module range, with delivery scheduled for the end of November. Prime Solar paid “a 15-percent down-payment of around 36,500 euros to RPP Solar.” In mid-November, Aristova received notice that “RPP Solar would not be able to de-liver a single module.” “We were forced to replace the modules for our customers quickly, and at a high price,” she says. 

E tenho uma certa admiração pela maneira pela maneira civilizada dos bons e civilizados sicilianos resolverem as coisas. Por exemplo assim.....

 turismo de palermo

Os sicilianos são muito religiosos, por isso quando há crise rezam aos santos mumificados

MA