Siemens, the German industrial conglomerate, has announced the shutdown the last unit of its solar energy business after it had failed to find a purchaser for the business. This decision was announced by the company through a report in a German newspaper.

Handelsblatt earlier reported that a spokesman for Siemens confirmed that the group would be closing Solel by early next year. The said unit had accumulated about Eur1 billion or US$1.33 billion since its purchase by Siemens back in 2009. One of the losses is the write-off of the entire purchase price from the books of Siemens.

Solel was being offered by Siemens in the past seven months. Its main business is the manufacture of components that are used for solar-therman power stations. Nearly 280 employees would be affected by the closure, many of them located in Israel.

The cost of the closure is expected to reach the middle double digits running up to the millions of Euros, as reported by Euros. This is but an industry wide occurrence, as many other German companies are struggling to keep afloat as Chinese imports are selling cheaper components and thus cornering the market.