Fidelis Energy Inc. (FDEI.PK) signed a long-term solar module agreement to supply 207 MW of solar modules to TinSol Energy (pty) Ltd. (TSEL) of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
TSEL plans to use the modules in the development and build-out of several solar parks in Africa.
Fidelis will begin shipments against this contract during 1Q11. Product will ship from Fidelis’s Chinese manufacturing plant, which is scheduled to come online during 4Q10.
This is the first multi-hundred megawatt deal for Fidelis. CEO James Poole said additional agreements are in the works.
Fidelis Energy announced up to $80 million of new financing in February 2010, for the purpose of expanding its photovoltaic manufacturing capacity. Fidelis plans to expand its annual manufacturing capacity by approximately 150 MW in each of the next several years.
Fidelis owns a unique patent pending solar cell technology based on photovoltaic cells with integral light-transmitting wave guides in a ceramic sleeve. Fidelis says the advantage of this technology is the efficiency of less exposed surface area being required to generate electricity. The light-transmitting particles act as wave guides and allow the sun-exposed conversion area of the solar cell to be shifted readily from horizontal to vertical to capture more sunlight. The ceramic sleeve eliminates the need for expensive vacuum chambers, thereby allowing less expensive materials to be used in solar cell production.
Competitors’ processes that use vacuum chambers (instead of a ceramic sleeve) generally don’t allow for material substitution because of contamination issues. Fidelis says its technology will also allow manufacturers to quickly and economically shift to new materials if a shortage of any one type of material occurs.
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