SolarWorld has landed another megawatt project in the United States. The group’s American subsidiary, SolarWorld Americas, will be supplying 17.5 MW worth of solar power modules for a plant in the Mojave Desert west of Las Vegas. The plant will use the high-efficiency 340-watt modules produced by SolarWorld in Hillsboro, Oregon. The installation of the over 51,000 modules will be performed by Bombard Renewable Energy, a longstanding partner of SolarWorld Americas. The project is expected to be completed by the end of this summer.
The plant in the United States marks the next in a series of successfully implemented megawatt projects by SolarWorld worldwide. In January of this year, the company secured the order for a 10.5 MW plant in Oregon, United States. It is currently also building a 5 MW plant in Great Britain and is set to complete the installation of a 2 MW solar park in the Netherlands, which began at the end of March, by the end of August. “The increasing number of large-scale projects shows that customers are also focussing on high efficiency and quality in the megawatt segment. High-quality modules that ensure decades of reliable power generation are simply more cost-effective at the end of the day,” states Dr.-Ing. E. h. Frank Asbeck, Chairman and CEO of SolarWorld.
SolarWorld already recorded a significant increase in shipments for large-scale solar power projects in 2015, with a year-on-year increase of 50 percent. The group is benefiting from improving quality awareness, both in the case of the smaller roof-mounted systems, as well as in the large-scale projects segment. Megawatt plants are increasingly also using high-efficiency modules with the new PERC technology, which offer a higher return due to their longer lifespan. The rise in the number of repowering projects has also contributed to the increasing share of large-scale projects. Besides Germany, the majority of the plants are located in France, Great Britain and the United States. The MENA region will also play a significant role for large-scale projects in the future.
