The solar industry continues to provide us with a confusing round of alternating good news/bad news stories.

Over the past few weeks, a number of solar energy companies announced they were laying off staff, and things didn’t look so good for the industry that had shown phenomenal growth over the past decade. (See ‘not so sunny after all’).

One of those companies was SunEdison, based in Beltsville, MD. Earlier this month SunEdison laid off an undisclosed number of staff in what they called a “minimal adjustment of workforce”. News now reaches us that SunEdison has acquired Business Institute Solar Strategy (BISS) in Germany. (press release).

This “provides SunEdison with 38 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects under development in Italy and Spain and direct access to 300 MW of project opportunities in Europe.” The news has had some pick up in the cleantech media (PV-tech.org). It will be interesting to watch if this move is part of a trend for companies in the sector to merge.

These two seemingly contradictory moves by SunEdison are probably completely unrelated. Still, other bad news/good news stories in this industry also continue. Suntech Power Holdings, a Chinese solar company, recently cut 10% of its workforce and lowered its Q4 estimates for 2008. But now the company has changed its mind, and says that things weren’t actually as bad as they thought (Forbes). And Suntech, along with Firs Solar, another favoured thin-film solar cell company, were recently chosen to provide panels for Masdar City, the zero-emissions project in Abu Dhabi.

The overall outlook from some financial observers, however, is still one of tough times for the industry.

Image: solar eclipse / NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center