GE May Choose Site for Biggest U.S. Solar Plant in 3 Months
General Electric Co. (GE) plans to select a location in about three months for a U.S. solar-panel plant that may be the country’s largest.
With the new facility, the total investment in the solar business will exceed $600 million, Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE said today in a statement. The plant will employ about 400 people and make enough panels annually for operators to generate power for 80,000 U.S. homes, or about 400 megawatts.
The tipping point in GE’s decision to expand manufacturing of the panels was boosting the efficiency of cadmium telluride- based thin film panels to a record 12.8 percent, said Victor Abate, who runs solar, wind and renewable energy units at GE, the world’s biggest provider of power-generation equipment. The increase also is a key factor in bringing down costs, he said.
“Before you scale, you have to be a technology leader,” Abate said in a telephone interview. “By reaching this milestone with the most efficient technology, we believe we’re ready to scale.”
The expansion includes buying the rest of Arvada, Colorado- based PrimeStar Solar Inc., he said. GE agreed to buy a minority stake in the company in 2007.
GE became the world’s second-biggest maker of wind turbines within a decade of purchasing Enron Corp.’s operations after that company’s 2002 bankruptcy. Abate said he thinks the company can build the solar business in a similar way.
Efficiency Savings
In solar, for every percentage point gain in efficiency, Abate sees a 10 percent reduction in cost.
GE expects to continue increasing the efficiency of the panels, Abate said.
“We’ve moved the efficiency from where we started investing with the team at PrimeStar at about four times the rate of the industry, and we expect to continue to do that,” he said.
GE has reached new commercial agreements for thin-film solar products, including panels, inverters and total solar power plants that would generate more than 100 megawatts, the company said today. The agreements include 60 megawatts of thin- film panels for Juno Beach, Florida-based NextEra Energy Inc., already a wind-turbine customer.
Photovoltaic system installations will almost double to 32.6 gigawatts by 2013 from 18.6 gigawatts last year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates. Manufacturing capacity worldwide has almost quadrupled since 2008 to 27.5 gigawatts, and 12 gigawatts of production will be added this year.
Thin-Film Panels
Most solar panels convert sunlight into electricity using silicon-based photovoltaic cells. Thin-film panels are made by coating glass or other material with cadmium telluride or with copper indium gallium selenide alloys, known as CIGS. They account for about 15 percent of a $28 billion global solar-panel market and have been gaining as prices rise for crystalline silicon, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The market leader is First Solar Inc. (FSLR), based in Tempe, Arizona, with $2.6 billion in annual revenue and about a six- year head start in commercializing cadmium-telluride thin film. The company plans to have enough capacity online for 2.9 gigawatts of power by the end of next year, according to figures on its website. Ted Meyer, a First Solar spokesman, declined to comment on GE’s announcement.
GE also faces start-up competitors such as Abound Solar Inc.
Converteam Acquisition
GE’s decision on where to locate the new plant will be based on criteria including proximity to the company’s research centers, available factory space, and incentives from state and local governments. GE expects to make a decision before the end of the year, at the latest, Abate said.
The new plant will be complemented by Converteam, the French power conversion company that GE agreed to purchase in late March, GE said. With Converteam, GE can offer packages that include power conversion and whole-plant systems rather than the panel modules alone, Abate said.
GE fell 20 cents to $20.35 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, while First Solar declined $1.80 to $148.80 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rachel Layne in Boston at rlayne@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net
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