FRENCH & PHOENIX IN BIG SUN BUILD

EDF, First Solar to build French solar panel plant
Muriel Boselli, Marcel Michelson and Nichola Groom (w/Bernard Orr), July 23, 2009 (Reuters)

"EDF Energies Nouvelles and [Phoenix-based] U.S. solar panel maker First Solar Inc…will build France's largest solar panel manufacturing plant [with an initial capacity of around 100 megawatts] at an investment cost of 90 million euros ($128 million)…

"At full production, projected for the second half of 2011, the plant will employ more than 300 people…EDF Energies Nouvelles, which is 50 percent-owned by EDF, has agreed to finance half of the capital expense and plant start-up costs and will get the plant's output for the first 10 years."

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"The move marks First Solar's first foray into the French market. The company, whose lower-cost solar panels are made from cadmium telluride rather than the polysilicon that dominates the market, already has manufacturing facilities in the United States, Germany and Malaysia…

"EDF Energies Nouvelles and First Solar, which will build and operate the plant in France, are still studying where to build it although it was likely they would chose southern France…"

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"France is a small solar market compared to neighbors Germany and Spain, the world's biggest markets for solar power. At the end of last year, however, France pledged to multiply by 400 the amount of solar power used in the country in the next 12 years as part of its plan to double the share of renewables in consumed energies to 23 percent…It plans to install a capacity of 5,400 MW by 2020, or the equivalent of just over three new-generation 1,600-MW nuclear reactors.

"France's installed solar energy production capacity reached 93 MW at the end of the first quarter of 2009, up from 69 MW at the end of 2008…This ranks France the fourth-largest solar energy producer behind Germany, Spain and Italy…"