NeoVolta bringing in PotisEdge/Longi’s experience
The company had already been in discussion with system integrator PotisEdge about a partnership before it was acquired by solar PV giant Longi in November, Johnson explained.
The structure the companies have settled on for the JV is 80:20% ownership split between NeoVolta and PotisEdge, while Longi holds a 2% stake in NeoVolta Inc.
Johnson said that keeps the JV company FEOC compliant while giving Longi a vested interest in NeoVolta’s success. NeoVolta’s share was initially 60%, with 20% held by PotisEdge and another 20% from an unnamed ‘group of strategic investors providing additional technical and operational support’. That group appears to have sold up, when in April NeoVolta announced an increase in its stake to 80%.
Longi has done a similar deal in solar PV manufacturing in the US, with IPP Invenergy for a module plant in Ohio, so it had experience in doing this kind of structuring, Johnson added.
