Silex Systems Ltd (Silex) announced the conditional acquisition of all the manufacturing assets and equipment of the Sydney Olympic Park (SOP) Solar manufacturing facility. This follows the signing of a Heads of Agreement with BP Solar Pty Ltd, who operated the facility until the end of March 2009.
In a separate arrangement, Silex also signed a conditional lease for the building which houses the SOP Plant, meaning that once the transactions are completed, the manufacturing facility including infrastructure and services will be secured relatively intact. It is expected that both transactions will be completed before the end of June 2009.
Silex said the financial investment required to take on the facility
includes a capital investment of A$7.0 million and A$6.0 million in
working capital. The investment will be funded out of the Company’s
cash reserves–currently standing at approximately A$67 million.
Silex anticipates that new manufacturing operations will involve a progressive roll-out of advanced technology and innovations, potentially including novel materials being developed by Silex’s Silicon Valley subsidiary Translucent Inc.
“This is a unique opportunity for Silex to kick-start its commercial solar operations” Dr Michael Goldsworthy, Silex CEO said.
The SOP Plant is the largest solar manufacturing facility in the Southern Hemisphere, with over 50 megawatts (MW) of solar cell production and 10MW of module production annually under previous BP Solar operations. It is estimated that the future capacity of the plant could potentially be expanded to 200MW, and possibly more with improvements in solar cell efficiencies. Initially the plant will operate at a much reduced capacity of 10MW – 15MW in 2010, ramping up to full capacity by 2012 to 2015, depending on market demand.
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