SunPower CEO: Solar Demand Starting To Rebound After Coronavirus Shock

Distributed solar and storage company SunPower ended the first coronavirus-influenced quarter with a loss but expressed some optimism for a rebound while reporting Q1 earnings on Thursday. After a rough April, SunPower said demand appears to be slowly growing back to precoronavirus levels. With shutdown orders lifting in some countries across the globe, the company’s solar manufacturing arm is also expecting a slow revival. “We think we’ve made the appropriate adjustments and put ourselves in a strong position because we responded early to the COVID-19 crisis,” CEO Tom Werner told Greentech Media in an interview after the company's Thursday earnings call. “There's a balance of a difficult April and an improving May and June.”

Among top U.S. residential solar companies, SunPower made early changes to mitigate the pandemic’s effects — perhaps in part because the company has less financial wiggle room than its peers.