Georgia-based solar cell manufacturer Suniva and New York-based solar installer SUNation have jointly announced a merger agreement, under which the former company will merge with a wholly-owned subsidiary of the latter, after which the parent company is expected to rebrand and continue to operate as Suniva.
The agreement will give Suniva, one of a relatively small field of domestic solar cell manufacturers, access to U.S. capital markets through the newly merged company’s listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
Prior to the merger’s announcement on June 8 2026, shares of SUNation (SUNE) stock were trading at approximately $1.13 per share, leaving the company with a total market cap of $4.66 million. The merger agreement would award pre-merger SUNation stockholders with equity equal to an implied value of $2.26 per share, or double the previous day’s closing price.
In the days following the merger announcement, individual share prices rose as high as $9.45 before setting around $2.45 as of the close of business Friday.
SUNation background
SUNation, a residential and commercial solar company headquartered in Ronkonkoma, New York, was formerly known as Pineapple Energy. The company was formed out of a merger between Minnesota-based Communications Systems, Inc. and Pineapple Energy, LLC.
The company, then trading under the stock symbol PEGY, originally acquired the SUNation brand in 2022. It completed a rebrand in 2024 to adopt the SUNation name and take the SUNE stock symbol, which had previously belonged to Sun Edison prior to its 2016 bankruptcy. The two companies share no other relationship.
SUNation is also the parent company of Hawaii Energy Connection and E-Gear. The company’s most recent earnings report indicated top-line revenue of $7.2 million for Q1 2026 with a net loss of $4.1 million.
Suniva background
Suniva’s story has been one of ups and downs. In recent years, the company has manufactured solar cells at its 1 GW facility in Norcross, Georgia, on production lines it began operating in November 2024. In the months prior to beginning operations, Suniva inked deals with domestic solar module manufacturers Heliene and Imperial Star Solar.
It has also announced plans to invest up to $350 million to open a second domestic facility in South Carolina which will ultimately have the capacity to produce up to 4.5 GW of solar cells per year.
The company had previously declared bankruptcy in 2017, just days before it filed petitions for relief with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) under Sections 201 and 202 of the Trade Act of 1974, alleging that a surge of cheap imported solar cells, heavily subsidized by foreign governments, had caused serious injury to domestic manufacturers.
The ITC ultimately agreed with Suniva, leading the Trump administration to impose a 30% tariff on imported solar cells and modules in January 2018. Those tariffs, which had been scheduled to step down over a four-year period, were ultimately extended in 2022 under the Biden administration.
Suniva currently represents about one-third of the total estimated 3 GW domestic capacity for silicon solar cell manufacturing, but it may soon have a great deal of company. Qcells has just begun manufacturing cells at its plant in Cartersville, Georgia, and plans to ramp up production to 3.3 GW by the end of 2026.
Other companies such as T1 Energy, Silfab Solar and Mission Solar are planning domestic cell manufacturing lines. In total, up to 30 GW of cell manufacturing is expected in the U.S. by 2028. However, that capacity will be dwarfed by expected module production of as much as 85 GW per year.
As long as gaps continue between the domestic production capacity of solar cells and modules, there will be built-in demand for domestically produced cells.
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