SolarWorld AG (SWV.DE) today announced plans to to expand production capacities at its Hillsboro site in Oregon. The German solar company said it wants to build a new manufacturing facility for the production of crystalline solar power modules with a capacity of 350 megawatts (MW) by 2011.
This will boost the group’s integrated production capacity of crystalline solar wafers, solar cells and solar modules in the USA to 500 MW each. SolarWorld is already one of the largest producers of solar power equipment in the United States.
Nationwide more than 1,000 employees will be working for Solar World in the USA, the company said.
"We are quite deliberately expanding our production in our future markets," says Frank H. Asbeck, Chairman and CEO of SolarWorld.
The USA is the third largest sales region for solar power technology.
"In addition to good growth prospects the USA as a production location also offers the best possible framework conditions to meet the high quality demands SolarWorld. What we have found here is an excellent research infrastructure, a highly qualified workforce and high social and environmental standards. These are central parameters for the production of sustainable and high efficiency products. "
A year ago, SolarWorld updated its solar module production line at its Camarillo, California site and opened the Hillsboro, Oregon site where a wafer and cell production facility started operating in October 2008.
In December 2008, SolarWorld and its Korean joint venture partner SolarPark Engineering Co. Ltd. commissioned a module factory with a capacity of 150 MW.
Together with European expansion in Freiberg, Germany, SolarWorld AG said it will have group-wide production capacities of more than one gigawatt (GW) by the year 2011 and will employ more than 3,000.
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