China To Build World's Largest Solar Field

When a country is not dependent on cheap oil and foreign interventions, there is extra capital left over to invest in sustainable energy. Seems like a winning formula to me.

First Solar Nabs China Contract to Build World's Largest Field

By John Letzing, MarketWatch

A previous version of this story contained an incorrect size comparison for the new solar field. The story has been corrected.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- First Solar Inc. said Tuesday it has signed an agreement with China to build a sprawling, 2-gigawatt solar power field, possibly becoming the world's largest such facility.

The plant, to be built in Ordos City in the province of Inner Mongolia, won't be entirely completed until 2019, Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar /quotes/comstock/15*!fslr/quotes/nls/fslr (FSLR 134.41, +12.94, +10.65%) said.

The project "represents an encouraging step forward toward the mass-scale deployment of solar power worldwide to help mitigate climate-change concerns," First Solar Chief Executive Mike Ahearn said in a statement.

The project will depend upon a "feed-in-tariff" supplied by the Chinese government, which will guarantee the pricing of the electricity it produces over a certain period, First Solar said.

"This type of forward-looking government policy is necessary to create a strong solar market ... which in turn continues to drive the cost of solar electricity closer to 'grid parity' -- where it is competitive with traditional energy sources," Ahearn said.

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the First Solar project would be built on 65 square kilometers (25 square miles) of land, slightly larger than the size of Manhattan.

As part of the arrangement, First Solar also intends to "actively participate in the development of the photovoltaic [solar cell] industry in China," the company said.

The China deal comes on the heals of First Solar's announcement in August it will build a 550-megawatt solar power generation facility for Southern California Edison, a unit of Edison International /quotes/comstock/13*!eix/quotes/nls/eix (EIX 33.31, +0.19, +0.57%) , by the end of 2015. See story on First Solar's Edison deal.

Shares of First Solar closed Tuesday more than 10% higher, at $134.41.