HILLSBORO, Ore. - March 19, 2009 - Five months after the grand opening of North America’s biggest solar manufacturing plant here in October, the SolarWorld group today announced it will begin construction of a new, adjacent facility.

The building, dedicated to logistics, distribution and production, will measure about 210,000 square feet, increasing the site’s plant space by 44 percent. By comparison, SolarWorld’s main building -- formerly a semiconductor factory built but never put into full production in the late 1990s -- measures about 480,000 square feet.

The new construction demonstrates that despite a world economic downturn, the SolarWorld group is forging ahead with aggressive plans to build U.S. manufacturing capacity in step with the long-term deployment of solar technology.

“We are fully committed to not only marketing the proven renewable energy of photovoltaic technology in the United States but also manufacturing it here,” said Boris Klebensberger, SolarWorld’s chief operating officer and President of SolarWorld Industries America. “This project further demonstrates our resolve.”

The new Logistics and Production Building leaves unchanged the company’s goal of building 500 MW of production capacity and about 1,000 employees by 2011. The project will employ between 150 and 200 construction workers at peak.

Completion is scheduled for November.

The project represents the second phase of the site’s buildout. With the new facility, the company will be able to realign production operations to make more efficient space of the main building’s full capacity.

SolarWorld’s 100-acre property near the corner of Northwest Evergreen and Shute roads provides still further room to grow, an opportunity that the company intends to seize as market and company conditions direct.

Gordon Brinser, vice president for operations for SolarWorld Industries America, congratulated the city of Hillsboro and state of Oregon on their ongoing steps to collaboratively grow safe, environmentally sound, well-paying industrial employment.

“Hillsboro and Oregon have been key partners so far in resolving the inevitable obstacles that arise for an enterprise of this magnitude,” Brinser said. “We hope they will continue to adapt to the challenges of establishing new, green industry.”

The logistics building has been designed, and will be constructed and operated, according to SolarWorld’s highest standards of sustainable business practices.

SolarWorld is the largest, and one of the oldest, U.S. manufacturers of photovoltaic cells and modules. It also operates U.S. sites in Vancouver, Wash., and Camarillo, Calif. Worldwide, the company, based in Bonn, Germany, runs production plants in Germany and South Korea. All, in turn, supply SolarWorld sales offices in the United States, Germany, Spain, South Africa and Singapore.

The SolarWorld group (ISIN: DE0005108401) is a world leader in high quality solar power technology. The company is involved at all levels of the solar value chain and combines all activities of the solar industry from silicon as the raw material to turn-key solar power systems. SolarWorld is represented in all the world’s solar growth markets. The group is exclusively dedicated to its core business of photovoltaic power generation. The central element of the business, in addition to the sale of turn-key solar systems and solar modules to the trade, is the distribution of solar silicon wafers to the international solar cell industry. Apart from grid-coupled (on-grid) products the SolarWorld group also sells off-grid solar power solutions that make an important contribution to the sustainable economic development of threshold and developing countries. Under the name Solar2World the group has pooled its ethical commitment to solar power especially in developing countries.

SolarWorld employs about 2,500 people worldwide. On the stock market, the company is listed on, among others, the technology index TecDAX, the ÖkoDAX, the Dow Jones STOXX 600, the international MSCI index and the sustainability indices DAXglobal Alternative Energy and NAI.