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United Solar joint venture in the works for 25 MW factory in China
On Sept. 19, Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (ECD) announced that its PV subsidiary United Solar Ovonic of Auburn Hills, Michigan, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Tianjin Jinneng Investment Company to found a joint venture to build a 25 MW manufacturing plant for United Solar's triple-junction a-Si thin-film laminates in Tianjin, the third-largest city in China, which is also the closes seaport to Beijing.
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© United Solar Ovonic LLC |
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Still sealing the deal: Seated in front, Yunshang Tong (left), general manager of Tianjin Jinneng Investment Co., with Subhendu Guha, president of United Solar. Back row: ECD's VP Nancy Bacon and COO Jim Metzger; Jeff Yang, VP of R&D at United Solar; and Roger Lesinski, corporate counsel for
ECD.
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»We are excited about this opportunity in China,« United Solar President and COO Subhendu Guha told PHOTON International. He refrained from discussing further details until a
»definitive agreement« has been reached.
Guha would also not confirm information disclosed in September by German newspaper Lausitzer Rundschau, which identified ECD as the investor in a
€150 million ($180 million) thin-film factory with a capacity of 60 MW in Hoyerswerda, in the eastern German state of
Saxony. »We have been exploring several opportunities in Germany and elsewhere,"« he said, naming Spain and Italy as other European countries of
interest. »With our current backlog (see PI 10/2005, p. 25), our board has told us to expand inside and outside of the US. In China we are very
close. But nothing else has firmed up
yet.«
Garrett Hering
© PHOTON International, November 2005
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