www.environmental-finance.com
London, 5 March:
First Solar is to acquire the 1,850MW solar project pipeline of developer OptiSolar for approximately $400 million. The Arizona-based solar panel company saw a bump in its share price after it announced the acquisition, and following the news it says it is now able to manufacture solar panels for less than $1 per watt. The firm's share price rose from a close of $103.97 on 2 March to $110.44 on 3 March, rising again to $113.25 on 4 March.
Analysts at Cowen & Co changed its rating to 'outperform' on 3 March. The acquisition will see First Solar take over a 550MW solar project already under development. Utility PG&E has signed a power purchase agreement to buy electricity produced by the project. The firm will also take over OptiSolar's 1,300MW project pipeline and 136,000 acres of strategic land rights, on which there is the potential to build up to 19GW of utility-scale projects.
Mike Ahearn, First Solar chief executive officer, said: "OptiSolar has created an impressive and well-designed development pipeline. Adding these resources, along with their development team, to First Solar is our next logical step to delivering multi-GW of solar energy to US utilities over the next several years." Although characterised by the firm as a "significant" expansion of its capacity in North America, the OptiSolar acquisition is not First Solar's first foray into project construction.
In November 2007, the firm bought Turner Renewable Energy to access its engineering, procurement and construction expertise, following which it has built a 10MW plant in El Dorado, Nevada, and signed a strategic agreement with Edison Mission Energy, including plans to build three "utility scale" plants in California. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2009, and will involve an all-stock transaction.
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