WA'AD AL SHAMAAL, Saudi Arabia and BELMONT, Calif., Feb. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- SunEdison Inc. (NYSE: SUNE), a leading solar technology manufacturer and provider of solar energy services, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of the Government of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Arabian Investment Company (Sanabil Investments), signed an agreement today to jointly fund a feasibility study for the establishment of a vertically integrated solar PV (photovoltaic) manufacturing complex at Wa'ad Al Shammal in Saudi Arabia. This follows a successful preliminary study between the National Industrial Clusters Development Program (NICDP) and SunEdison in 2013.
The proposed project, entailing the production of polysilicon through modules, would support the growth of the solar energy industry in the Kingdom, and is consistent with SunEdison's long term strategy to:
Develop attractive new markets to fuel SunEdison and industry growth,
Maximize the value of our installed systems via the most cost competitive inputs, enabled by SunEdison's proprietary technology, and
Improve our balance sheet through an equity light approach, again leveraging our proprietary technology.
This, and other deals like it, are designed to enable SunEdison's long term, downstream growth aspirations, which require significant supply capacity, accomplished in an asset light, balance sheet amenable way.
The complex would utilize both SunEdison's proprietary high pressure silane fluidized bed reactor (HP-FBR) polysilicon, and continuous Czochralski (CCz) crystal ingot technology and equipment, as well as include solar wafer, cell and module manufacturing, employ attractive debt financing for the approximately $6.4B project, and would begin production in 2017, ramping to 3 GW (gigawatts) annually. A significant percentage of polysilicon and ingot production would support the 3 GW planned module output, with the remaining crystal production addressing the market with a substantial cost advantage. Demonstrating strong support, the Ministry of Petroleum and Minerals pointed out it will provide the required quantities of natural gas, and the Saudi Electrical Company (SEC) will provide the needed power requirements for the project.......http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/...audi-arabia-243481151.html |
