First Solar Says Industry in Australia Trails U.S. by Four Years

By James Paton, Bloomberg:

First Solar Inc. (FSLR), the biggest maker of thin-film panels, said Australia is four years behind the U.S. in building large solar farms and expects its project with General Electric Co. (GE) to help spur the industry’s expansion.

First Solar is supplying panels to the 10-megawatt Greenough River project in Western Australia, the nation’s first large-scale solar plant. The GE- and Verve Energy-owned solar project, which started this month, may increase capacity to as much as 40 megawatts, the companies said Oct. 10.

“This is less about the size and more about the fact that we now have a utility-scale solar project in Australia,” Jack Curtis, First Solar’s Sydney-based vice president of business development, said in a phone interview… Read more