Shoals Wins $96 Million From Voltage, But the Trunk Bus Voltage Ships Today Was Cleared

A federal jury in Greensboro, North Carolina awarded Shoals Technologies Group $96.38 million on August 26. The jury found that Voltage, LLC willfully infringed patents on trunk bus assemblies. Those assemblies carry current between the rows of a utility-scale solar array. The judge said he will grant a preliminary injunction against the manufacture, distribution or sale of Voltage’s LYNX product in the United States, effective immediately. The willfulness finding gives the court discretion to raise the award.

Read the injunction closely. It covers LYNX. It does not cover LYNX PLUS, the trunk bus Voltage sells today.

That distinction came out of the parallel case at the International Trade Commission. In June the Commission affirmed its February determination. Voltage had violated Section 337 of the Tariff Act by importing infringing trunk bus cable assemblies. The Commission issued a limited exclusion order barring those imports.

The same determination then split Voltage’s redesigns. Three alternative designs infringed. Three did not, and that group includes LYNX PLUS. The Commission set a 100% bond on excluded articles during the 60-day presidential review. That review lapsed without intervention.

So Shoals now holds an import ban and a jury verdict against a product line the ITC already excluded in July. Voltage says LYNX PLUS stays in full production and ships on schedule. The company markets it on a 2 kV architecture, 10 to 15% material savings and a 34% reduction in voltage drop.

Voltage will ask for a new trial. CEO Li Wang says his engineers built LYNX in 2021. That is three years before the patents Shoals asserted were issued. Wang also points to what he calls the court’s earlier findings that Shoals broke an agreement. That agreement barred its counsel from involvement in obtaining those patents. Neither side has published the post-trial motion schedule.

Shoals CEO Brandon Moss framed the verdict as a defense of the Big Lead Assembly portfolio and of domestic manufacturing. Shoals builds in Portland, Tennessee.

Why It Matters

An EPC buying electrical balance of system hardware for a 2027 project does not care about $96.38 million. It cares whether Voltage still ships. Today the answer is yes, under a redesign the same Commission cleared. The damages run backward over sales already made. The injunction closes a door the ITC closed seven weeks earlier.

The open question is LYNX PLUS. If the redesign really rides on the same portfolio, why has Shoals not filed against it in the six months since the ITC first cleared it? Until Shoals does, a buyer’s real exposure sits in the post-trial docket rather than in the verdict. Two companies have now declared victory at three separate stages of this case. Procurement teams should read the order, not the press release.

Critical Perspective

Treat the $96.38 million as a starting position, not a payment. Voltage says it will move for a new trial, and a Federal Circuit appeal sits behind that. Shoals has collected nothing so far. The willfulness finding that would enlarge the award is also the finding most likely to draw hard appellate scrutiny.

The counter-allegation deserves more attention than either press release gave it. Voltage points to what it describes as earlier findings that Shoals broke an agreement barring its counsel from work on obtaining these patents. If that holds up, it reaches the enforceability of the patents themselves rather than the size of the damages. Neither company has published the order. Neither trade report quotes it.

There is also a framing problem. Shoals presents the outcome as a win for American intellectual property against foreign copying. Voltage Energy Group is headquartered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, though the case also names Ningbo Voltage Smart Production as a defendant. The tidy domestic-versus-foreign story does not survive contact with the caption.

One number decides whether this matters commercially, and nobody has published it. What share of Voltage’s US sales came from LYNX rather than LYNX PLUS? Without that figure, the real effect of the injunction on eBOS supply stays unknown.

Sources

• Shoals Technologies Group Prevails in Patent Infringement Case Against Voltage in North Carolina
• Voltage Energy Will Seek New Trial and Review of Verdict in Shoals Patent Dispute
• NC jury awards Shoals $96 million in damages over Voltage patent infringement
• U.S. ITC issues limited exclusion order against Voltage in Shoals patent dispute
• Waiting for a final verdict: Shoals and Voltage both declare victory in eBOS patent dispute

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