Solarworld, Solon Start U.S. Factories to Tap `Massive' Demand

By Nicholas Comfort

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Solarworld AG, a German maker of equipment to generate power from sunlight, and smaller rival Solon AG fuer Solartechnik both opened factories in the U.S. today to benefit from ``massively'' increasing demand there.

Solarworld's plant in Hillsboro, Oregon, will make solar cells out of silicon discs, also known as wafers, the company said in a statement. Solon's Tucson, Arizona facility will make modules, the panels mounted on roofs or in fields to capture the sun's rays, according to a separate, e-mailed statement.

President George W. Bush signed into law $17 billion in alternative energy tax breaks as part of the $700 billion bank- rescue plan approved by Congress earlier this month. That will boost demand and allow the solar industry growth rates to outstrip those of the U.S. economy, Solarworld Chief Executive Officer Frank Asbeck has said.

U.S. ``demand for clean and non-imported energy is massively increasing,'' Solarworld said in its statement. Solar power will ``clearly win the day against the current trend in the U.S. economy,'' where the solar market will more than double to sales of about 1 gigawatt of final products in 2009, it said.

The Bonn-based company's Oregon plant will be the country's biggest. It will have an initial capacity of 100 megawatts, rising to 500 megawatts in the next three years, according to the statement. Investments will total $500 million by 2011.

The company, which also owns a module factory in California, said its Freiberg plant in the German state of Saxony will remain the biggest manufacturing location. Solarworld is spending 350 million euros ($469.4 million) expanding production there to 1 gigawatt, or 1,000 megawatts, according to the statement.

Berlin-based Solon will produce modules and other solar power plant equipment with a combined capacity of 60 megawatts per year in Tucson, the company said, without specifying future plans for output.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nicholas Comfort in Frankfurt at ncomfort1@bloomberg.net