US firm wins huge solar power project in China
Thursday, 10 September 2009
WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (AFP): US energy giant First Solar yesterday won a deal to build the world's largest solar power plant in China, aimed at helping mitigate climate change concerns.
First Solar will construct the two-gigawatt plant in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) inked Tuesday with Chinese officials at the company's headquarters in Tempe, Arizona.
The solar facility is to be built in four phases over a decade and supply power to three million Chinese homes, the company said in a statement.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"We're proud to be announcing this precedent-setting project today," First Solar chief executive Mike Ahearn said in the statement.
The United States and China, he said, could work together to reduce the cost of solar electricity to "grid parity"-where it is competitive with traditional energy sources-and "create the blueprint for accelerated mass-scale deployment of solar power worldwide to mitigate climate change."
China's chief legislator, Wu Bangguo, who is the second-most powerful leader in the ruling Communist Party after President Hu Jintao, witnessed the signing of the MOU.
Wu is expected to meet with US congressional leaders and officials in President Barack Obama's administration in Washington on a variety of energy, trade and business initiatives.
The MOU outlined a long-term "strategic partnership" between First Solar and Ordos City, where First Solar would also consider a manufacturing investment, officials said.
"We are very pleased to be partnering with one of the solar industry's global technology leaders in a project of such significance to Ordos's low carbon future," said Cao Zhichen, vice mayor of Ordos municipal government.
First Solar will construct the two-gigawatt plant in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) inked Tuesday with Chinese officials at the company's headquarters in Tempe, Arizona.
The solar facility is to be built in four phases over a decade and supply power to three million Chinese homes, the company said in a statement.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"We're proud to be announcing this precedent-setting project today," First Solar chief executive Mike Ahearn said in the statement.
The United States and China, he said, could work together to reduce the cost of solar electricity to "grid parity"-where it is competitive with traditional energy sources-and "create the blueprint for accelerated mass-scale deployment of solar power worldwide to mitigate climate change."
China's chief legislator, Wu Bangguo, who is the second-most powerful leader in the ruling Communist Party after President Hu Jintao, witnessed the signing of the MOU.
Wu is expected to meet with US congressional leaders and officials in President Barack Obama's administration in Washington on a variety of energy, trade and business initiatives.
The MOU outlined a long-term "strategic partnership" between First Solar and Ordos City, where First Solar would also consider a manufacturing investment, officials said.
"We are very pleased to be partnering with one of the solar industry's global technology leaders in a project of such significance to Ordos's low carbon future," said Cao Zhichen, vice mayor of Ordos municipal government.