First Solar to build new solar panel manufacturing plant

May 10, 2011

First Solar Inc. has announced it will build its new U.S. manufacturing center in Mesa, Ariz. The company will invest about $300 million in the factory, which will create approximately 600 jobs and include four manufacturing lines with a capacity to produce more than 250 MW of advanced thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules per year. The new factory, in combination with a recently expanded facility in Perrysburg, Ohio, will increase the company’s U.S. production capacity to more than 500 MW per year.

Construction will begin in the second quarter of 2011 and is expected to last a year, creating 400 to 500 construction jobs. Module shipments are scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2012. The facility, located on a 135-acre site that was previously home to a General Motors vehicle testing facility, is designed to accommodate future expansion. The facility will have a 3-MW rooftop solar installation as well as an extensive ground-mounted PV testing facility. The factory will use the company’s continuous manufacturing process that transforms a sheet of glass into a complete solar module in less than 2.5 hours.

Like all of its PV modules, the entire production output of the Mesa factory will be part of the company’s comprehensive, prefunded solar module collection and recycling program, which the company says is the first of its kind in the industry. Anyone wishing to dispose of the company’s modules can request collection at any time, at no additional cost, and the company will pick up the modules and recycle as much as 90 percent (by mass) of the material for use in new products, including new solar modules and new glass products.