news.alibaba.com
25 Oct 2009
Private solar cell producer, ENN Solar Energy Group, teamed up with American utility company Duke Energy Friday to build large-scale solar farms and distribute photovoltaic (PV) electricity throughout the US. The companies signed a partnership agreement in ENN Solar Energy's headquarters in Langfang, Hebei Province to build solar utility projects, which will start construction in 2010 in the US. Ownership will be split 50-50 by the two firms. "The volume of the projects will depend upon how many customers we are able to sign up," Keith Trent, president and group executive of Duke's Commercial Business, said at a media conference, without giving specific figures.
ENN Solar Energy is controlled by Wang Yusuo, chairman of Hong Kong-listed Xinao Gas Holdings. Financial details of the agreement have not been made available. Duke will not be investing money in developing the technology with ENN Solar Energy, but it will help identify clients, find projects and deploy the technology in the US, drawing on local experience in the wind energy sector. "The more you deploy, the more opportunities you have to improve the efficiency," Trent said. Duke will focus on the states which have renewable energy standards and specified solar amount requirements, such as Ohio and North Carolina, Trent said.
The size of the projects will be in the range of 5 to 50 MWs, and they expect to develop at least 25 MWs a year to start off, he added. "As the US economy recovers, I expect the scale of the solar energy market to be above 400 MWs in 2010," said Liu Wenping, solar energy analyst at JLM Pacific Epoch, an independent consultancy in Shanghai. Duke Energy Generation Services owns and operates more than 630 MWs of wind energy projects in the US, according to a company statement.
ENN Solar Energy, a subsidiary of ENN Solar Energy Group, aims to increase the conversion efficiency of its thin-film PV modules to 12% over the next two years from a rate of eight% realised on its Applied Materials (AM) production line, which produces 5.7 square meters modules, said to be the largest in the world. "It would be extremely difficult for ENN Solar Energy to achieve the 12% rate on such a large area, even with the support from AM," Liu of JLM said.
Since no company has achieved that high of a conversion rate at the moment, it is impossible to estimate how much it would cost for such enhancements, Liu added. Cai Hongqiu, chief executive of ENN Solar Energy, refused to reveal the amount they expect to invest in research and development, or comment on a South China Morning Post report of the company's potential listing in Hong Kong next year. The companies have no immediate plan to build commercial PV projects in China, according to the executives.
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