On March 22nd, 2011 First Solar Inc. (Tempe, Arizona, U.S.) announced that it has broken ground on a solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing facility in Vietnam with an annual output of more than 250MW. The USD 300 million facility, in the Dong Nam Industrial Park near Ho Chi Minh City, is scheduled to begin commercial production in the second half of 2012.

“Our Dong Nam factory will play a key role in our plan to nearly double First Solar’s capacity by 2012 and further reduce the cost of solar electricity,” said First Solar President Bruce Sohn. “We look forward to working closely with the Vietnamese authorities in the months and years to come.”

Four manufacturing lines with room for more

The manufacturing plant will be comprised of four manufacturing lines, with room for future expansion. The factory will utilize First Solar's continuous manufacturing process which transforms a sheet of glass into a PV module in less than 2.5 hours.

The plant will employ an estimated 600 workers for ongoing production, with 2,000 involved in the construction.

90% of module contents recycled

The factory will include a 3MW rooftop PV plant and a recycling plant. First Solar says that its process currently recovers up to 90% of a module's semiconductor materials and glass, by weight, for use in new PV modules and glass products.

First Solar notes that all of its PV factories worldwide are certified under ISO14001 for environmental standards, ISO9001 for quality and OHSAS 18001 for occupational safety and health.

2011-03-24| Courtesy: First Solar Inc. | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

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