US firm to build huge solar plant in China
- Source: Global Times
- [01:29 September 10 2009]
- Comments
First Solar Inc said Tuesday that it plans to build the world's largest solar plant in China in the first major foray by a US company into the nation's fast-growing alternative-energy sector.
Under a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government, First Solar will build a 2-gigawatt power plant, enough to power about 3 million Chinese households, at Ordos, in Inner Mongolia, and is mulling building a new manufacturing plant in China.
The announcement comes as the solar industry strives to emerge from a year-long slump that saw financing for new projects dry up and reduced subsidies in Spain create a glut of unsold cells and panels.
The project is part of China's program to generate 10 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2010 and 15 percent by 2020 to help meet its growing energy appetite that has made the country a major emitter of carbon dioxide.
First Solar will begin constructing a 30-megawatt demonstration project in June in Ordos. The second and third phases call for 100-megawatt and 870-megawatt projects that will be completed in 2014. A final 1,000-megawatt installation will be finished in 2019.
Solar projects have so far been built on a smaller scale, and the First Solar project will be a test of whether the technology behind the plant – which will be 30 times the size of the current largest plant – can be scaled up.
"In most people's heads, (solar) is a nice little niche thing," First Solar Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Ahearn told Reuters. "Having a demonstration of something that's nuclear-plant sized will begin to change that image."
Such a project would cost about $6 billion to build in the southwest US, but First Solar expects lower costs in China.
The agreement hinges on signing contracts with a power generator to operate the project in China, as well as Beijing's approval of a feed-in tariff mandating that utilities pay a premium for solar power, similar to supports in place in Germany.
That tariff is expected to be enacted by the end of the year, with a support likely in the range of $0.15 to $0.25 per kilowatt hour, Ahearn said.
Reuters
