LOS ANGELES, Dec 22 (Reuters) – U.S. solar power company First Solar
Inc (FSLR.O) has dropped plans to develop a 150 megawatt solar power
project in Colorado, the company said on Tuesday, shifting its focus
to "higher priority projects."
Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar is one of the world's largest solar
module makers and has more than 1.5 gigawatts of power projects in
its pipeline.
The company on Dec. 17 withdrew its application with the Bureau of
Land Management to build the project across 2,100 acres of high
desert in Colorado's San Luis Valley, said Steven Hall, a spokesman
with the federal agency in Colorado.
Withdrawing the application lets First Solar work on higher-priority
and "nearer-term" projects, company spokesman Alan Bernheimer wrote
in an email.
He later added that the company is reviewing its portfolio to see
which projects have the highest priority based on factors like
transmission capacity.
The proposed 150 MW project was part of the pipeline of utility-scale
solar farms that First Solar acquired when it bought rival OptiSolar
earlier this year.
The federal agency said on Tuesday that it also denied applications
for four other projects by First Solar in Barstow, California that
together total about 2.5 gigawatts.
Wedbush Morgan analyst Christine Hersey said that investors should
take note even though First Solar has not spent large sums on
developing these projects beyond its purchase of OptiSolar's
pipeline.
"Some of these U.S. large scale projects may be a little bit more
difficult to develop than investors realize," Hersey said.
First Solar has the lowest production costs in the industry. Its
cadmium telluride-based panels that convert sunlight to electricity
are cheaper to make, but less efficient than traditional silicon-
based panels.
First Solar's shares closed down 1 percent at $135.50 in trading on
Tuesday on the Nasdaq.
