May 22 2008
Evergreen Solar, Inc., a manufacturer of solar power panels with its proprietary, low-cost String Ribbon(TM) wafer technology, announced it has signed two new long-term sales contracts. Yesterday, Evergreen Solar and German-based Ralos Vertriebs GmbH signed an agreement valued at approximately $750 million for panel deliveries beginning in 2008 and extending through 2013. Combined with another agreement signed last week with a United States-based installer, Evergreen has new contractual backlog of approximately $1 billion.
The solar panels for these two contracts will be manufactured at the company’s Devens, Massachusetts facility, which will begin panel production in July, and represent approximately 35 percent of the expected 160MW of annual production capacity at Devens through 2013. In addition to these two new contracts, Evergreen Solar has six other customer contracts with a current total backlog of approximately $850 million, which will primarily be supplied by EverQ, its German-based joint venture.
“We offer our customers a long-term value proposition because our string ribbon technology consumes less than half of the polysilicon as compared to the industry average, which enables us to provide a unique combination of cost and cell conversion efficiency," said Richard M. Feldt, Evergreen Solar's president and chief executive officer. “We will enter into selective long-term supply agreements with additional companies that also bring differentiated value to their customers and serve markets that are at the forefront of solar growth.”