ONYX Withdraws From Honduras

ONYX Services and Solutions, the Colorado-based company, announced today that it is withdrawing from its contract with ENEE to install a 22 megawatt solar farm on Roatan.

This contract was signed October of last year, and called for ONYX to supervise the installation of 18.5 megawatts of solar power, later increased to 22.5 megawatts.

The company is just walking away from the contract.

Their press statement claims the political, regulatory, and financial situation in Honduras presents an unfriendly environment to alternative energy projects.

At the same time, they say they are continuing small solar projects on Roatan, which calls into question their explanation.

What happened?

Longtime readers of this blog will recall that when it was announced in October of last year, we called this contract into question because of a lack of expertise in installing solar power in ONYX, a lack of financial backing to carry out such large projects, and a lack of employees.

We noted at that time that the company's own statements to the SEC were about running banking ATM networks in upstate New York, not solar power.

So while it is convenient for ONYX-- which did not have the financial resources to carry out its part of the contract-- to portray Honduras as an unfriendly environment for their business, we would suggest that if you follow the money, there was never any reason to expect ONYX to be able to complete their end of the bargain.