The once fast-growing solar installation company that started in a Pasco garage less than a decade ago is shutting down.

Solgen Power, which most recently did business as Purelight Power from a headquarters in Medford, Oregon, notified Oregon state officials on Dec. 23 that it was shutting down immediately, putting all 109 in-state employees and remote workers out of work by Dec. 26

“Simply put, the company is out of time and out of money,” said JD Beck, Solgen/Purelight’s CEO, in its required Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN), to the state. “The company has begun the process of shutting down its operations nationwide, is no longer operating in the normal course as a commercial enterprise, and shortly will be filing a petition for Chapter 7 liquidation.”

The close of Solgen’s final chapter comes a month after it notified Washington labor officials that it was shuttering its remaining operations in the state and laying off 106 workers. 

Roughly half those jobs were based at the company’s office in west Pasco and warehouse in Richland.

Beck said that the shutdown is the result of numerous factors, most notably the passage of H.R. 1, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill championed by President Donald Trump. That legislation dramatically cut solar tax credits and significantly restricted how they could be used. That financial challenge piled on top of others the company was facing, including a prior merger, rising interest rates and increasing advertising costs.

Solgen leaders attempted to find new financing options and to attract a buyer, which would have preserved jobs. However, the three offers it received were unacceptable to Solgen’s lender, which has declared the company in default and would only provide funds toward the company’s liquidation.

The closure is a stark reversal of fortunes for a company that once employed nearly 400 and had operations across three states, including at a $6.2 million 20,000-square-foot national headquarters building at 5715 Bedford St. in Pasco.

Its rapid growth began to falter in 2022, when customer complaints about the company and its sales tactics began to multiply. Solgen’s alleged tactics to overpromise on what its solar power systems would deliver to homeowners was one of the examples of the industry’s sales tactics that led Washington state lawmakers to pass tougher consumer protections for the industry.

The company had a history of safety violations from the state Department of Labor & Industries. There were 11 inspections since 2021 where L&I found issues with Solgen’s fall prevention safeguards. As of August 2025, the company owed L&I more than $460,000 in outstanding penalties.