Wikipedia
SunEdison, Inc. is a global renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, a former business unit of Monsanto Company, Monsanto sold the company in 1989. Prior to May 30, 2013, the company was known as MEMC Electronic Materials; the name change to SunEdison reflects the company's focus on solar energy. SunEdison's corporate headquarters are in Maryland Heights, Missouri, and the company's operational and solar headquarters are in Belmont, California with offices throughout the world.
Established in the early stages of the semiconductor electronics industry in 1959, MEMC was for the next half century a major and pioneering manufacturer of silicon wafers, the most basic element of semiconductor-chip manufacturing. The company entered the solar market in a major way beginning in 2006, with longterm contracts to manufacture and sell solar wafers to several large Asian solar-energy companies. Contracts with other solar-energy companies followed, as did joint-venture projects on solar power plants. With the acquisition of the large, successful, and pioneering solar-energy systems company SunEdison LLC in late 2009 and the smaller solar-power companies Axio and Fotowatio in 2011, MEMC focused increasingly on the burgeoning solar-energy industry to offset the cyclical downturns in the semiconductor market. The company now develops, finances, and maintains solar power systems and plants for a widespread commercial, public-sector, and power-plant customer base, and its name change in 2013 to SunEdison, Inc. reflects its main focus. It is one of the leading solar-power companies worldwide, and with its acquisition of wind-energy company First Wind in 2014, SunEdison is the leading renewable energy development company in the world. SunEdison's subsidiaries TerraForm Power and TerraForm Global own and operate renewable-energy projects around the globe. In 2015, SunEdison sold off its subsidiary SunEdison Semiconductor, which manufactures silicon wafers for the electronics industry. The divestiture marked the completion of SunEdison, Inc.'s transition from a semiconductor-wafer company to a dedicated renewable-energy corporation.
Following years of major expansion and the announcement of the intent – which eventually fell through – to acquire the residential-rooftop solar company Vivint Solar in 2015, SunEdison's stock plummeted and its more than $11billion in debt caused it to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 21, 2016.