They have lost their raison d'être.
There are hundreds of solar installation companies just in California, many of them being much larger than SunWorks. Just look at the almond conference they recently sponsored, there were several other agriculture focused companies there as well renting out larger spaces than SUNW. None of these companies are publicly traded, for a reason. The main reason they are not publicly traded is they have nothing to offer that makes them special.
For a time what made SUNW (then SLTD) special and in need of public markets was their 3D Solar Cell, which they claimed would revolutionize the entire economy of energy. After racking up tens of millions in losses via dilution, but spending under $1M on R&D, the cell project was abandoned. Most of the money by far was siphoned from shareholders to the people who financed this company. The form of financing was the crux of what I believe is was a scam to cheat people out of their money by convincing to invest in a phony project.
Regardless, the existence of the cell project was able to attract investment because of the (imagined) potential of a massive payoff.
When the cell failed their new line of marketing towards investors was that Nelson is a genius who worked with Mitt Romney at Bain, and he was going to use his expertise to make great deals and make Solar3D great again. He bought a tiny company, SunWorks, and turned it into a medium sized company the only way he knows how: dilution. This was done by raising the money from Cowen.
Expanding via acquisitions in an industry like this which has no barriers to entry, few long lived assets, limited brand value or intellectual property really doesn't make sense. That's why nobody else is doing it, and that's why it failed and the company has now abandoned the strategy after only a few small acquisitions. One of which, MD Energy, was a total (and for shareholders, expensive) failure.
Both the cell and the acquisition strategy were doomed to fail from the start. The cell being a scam in my opinion, while the acquisition strategy was set up to encourage Nelson to overpay by offering stock comp to get ANY deal done regardless of quality for shareholders.
However, Nelson is an effective marketer, which is actually his background. He was able to use these ideas, along with other IR strategies like paid stock promotions, to get the stock up for a while.
Now, with these "exciting" aspects of the company gone we are left with a shell of the former company. It's a more legitimate shell, but it's a dime a dozen solar installer with an inefficient corporate structure (why exactly is Nelson CEO after the M&A strategy is out). They are operating in a cutthroat environment against huge and well funded competitors.
Simply put, their reason to exist on the public markets is gone. There is nothing that makes them special anymore, even if what made them special in the past was a facade.
You take all that and combine it with the cardinal sin of raising guidance and proceeding to disappoint badly, you get what we see here.
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