On February 9th, 2012 Soitec SA (Bernin, France) announced that it has secured financing from Investec Bank Ltd. (La Lucia, South Africa) to build a 50 MW concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) plant in South Africa's Western Cape region

Investec has committed to finance the project in Touwsrivier, Western Cape and raise the equity to construct the plant. Soitec expects all financing arrangements to be finalized by the end of the second quarter of 2012.

“With financing now in place, we are moving forward to provide South Africa with its first large-scale CPV renewable-energy plant,” said Soitec Chairman and CEO André Jacques Auberton-Hervé.

“Following our previous construction of a pilot facility at Aquila and the 500-kW CPV plant near Durban that helped to power the United Nation’s recent conference on global climate change, Soitec is helping South Africa to realize its ambitious renewable-energy objectives.”


DOE selects Soitec through preferred bidder program

The South African Department of Energy selected Soitec in December 2011 as a preferred bidder through its independent power producer program. Soitec's first project under the program will be the Touwsrivier plant, which will utilize fifth-generation Soitec Concentrix CPV modules.

When completed, the Touwsrivier plant will more than six times as large as the largest currently operational CPV plant in the world.

2012-02-13| Courtesy: Soitec SA | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

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