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Hillsboro, Ore., May 28, 2009 – A total of nearly 12,000 Sunmodules from SolarWorld, the largest North American manufacturer of photovoltaic cells and modules, have gone to work producing energy in rooftop projects at important civic facilities in Florida and Southern California, marking solar-energy milestones in both regions.
The groundbreaking projects comprise: - 5,000 175-watt Sunmodules on the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., the nation’s second biggest facility of its kind. The 1-megawatt system is the largest roof-mounted installation in the Southeast. A shimmering facility of buttressed glass walls and soaring arches, the center attracts an estimated 1.4 million visitors a year. The county and the Orlando Utilities Commission partnered on the project, which the U.S. Department of Energy designated a Solar America Showcase.
- 6,720 Sunmodules on the central bus maintenance facility of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in downtown Los Angeles. The 1.2 megawatt system is the largest solar-panel installation both in the nation’s second largest city and at a U.S. transit facility. The 175-watt Sunmodules atop the transit agency’s Support Services Center are expected to slash the facility's annual $1.1 million energy bill in half.
The marquee projects, combined with a hefty federal solar-energy investment announced this week, highlight growth in the SolarWorld group’s U.S. market, where the company is not only the largest but also the most experienced solar manufacturer.
“We look forward to building on our success in helping the nation move toward sustainable energy and away from fossil fuels,” said Boris Klebensberger, president and chairman of SolarWorld in the United States. “From the municipal to the federal level, the country finally is quite literally seeing the light.”
The administration of President Obama announced that the U.S. Department of Energy would provide $117.6 million from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to help the U.S. industry scale up manufacturing and distribution.
“We have a choice,” Obama said in a DOE news release. “We can hand over the jobs of the future to our competitors, or we can confront what they have already recognized as the great opportunity of our time: the nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy. That’s the nation I want America to be.”
It’s also the America that SolarWorld has worked to build for 32 years. At plants in Hillsboro, Ore., Vancouver, Wash., and Camarillo, Calif. – started in 1977 – SolarWorld produces Sunmodules to fuel renewable-energy systems in such familiar regions as Southern California and Florida.
“We are particularly proud of these latest projects, because we have been involved in those regions for decades, and our work continues to show results amid a redoubled national movement toward renewable energy,” said Raju Yenamandra, the company’s head of sales for SolarWorld California in Camarillo.
The Hillsboro factory, opened in October, is hiring every week as it scales up to reach 500 MW of capacity and 1,000 employees in 2011.
About the SolarWorld group: The SolarWorld group of companies (ISIN: DE0005108401) is a world leader in providing high-quality solar power technology. The company, exclusively dedicated to its core business of photovoltaic technology, is represented at all stages of the solar value chain, combining industrial activities ranging from the raw material of silicon to turn-key solar power plants and recycling. SolarWorld is represented in all solar growth markets of the world with production facilities mainly in Germany and the United States and major sites in Freiberg, Saxony, and Hillsboro. The group headquarters is located in Bonn, Germany. Worldwide sales of the solar modules are secured by five sales offices, in Germany, Spain, the U.S., South Africa and Singapore. The central element of the business, in addition to the sale of turn-key solar plants and solar modules to the specialist trade, is the distribution of solar wafers to the international solar cell industry. In addition to grid-coupled (on-grid) products, the SolarWorld group also distributes grid-independent (off-grid) solar power solutions. Under the name Solar2World, the group lives up to its ethical commitment to fair development in threshold and developing countries. In this context, mainly off-grid solar power solutions are funded that are perfect examples for sustainable economic development.
Sustainability is an integral part of the SolarWorld corporate strategy. Corporate management is committed to ecologically, economically and socially sustainable growth. SolarWorld employs some 2,500 people worldwide. Shares of the company (SWV.DE) are quoted on the stock market in listings that include the technology index TecDAX, the ÖkoDAX, the Dow Jones STOXX 600, the international MSCI Index as well as the sustainability indices DAXglobal Alternative Energy and NAI.
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