First Solar Inc. and Ordos City in China signed an agreement to build what will be a 2-gigawatt solar installation in the Inner Mongolia city.
The deal, announced Tuesday, calls for the project to start as a 30-megawatt demonstration unit with construction beginning in June and additional phases brought online in 2014 and 2019.
Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) signed the memorandum of understanding Monday while Chinese officials were visiting the company’s offices. The deal calls for First Solar to provide panels, engineering and construction for the facility.
First Solar also will help develop the thin film photovoltaic supply chain in China, and could look at manufacturing sites in or around the city.
Ordos officials will set up 65 square kilometers of land for the project and work with First Solar in construction and financing.
“This major commitment to solar power is a direct result of the progressive energy policies being adopted in China to create a sustainable, long-term market for solar and a low carbon future for China,” First Solar chief executive officer Mike Ahearn said in a news release. “We’re proud to be announcing this precedent-setting project today. It represents an encouraging step forward toward the mass-scale deployment of solar power worldwide to help mitigate climate change concerns.”
First Solar will operate the plant under China’s feed-in tariff, which guarantees prices paid for renewable power.
“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. “Discussions with First Solar about building a factory in China demonstrate to investors in China that they can confidently invest in the most advanced technologies available.”
Final details of the deal are yet to be worked out, officials said.
