Moser Baer India inks $500M thin-film deals

Moser Baer India announced today that it had signed agreements with German-based companies Ralos Vertriebs and Colexon Energy to provide $500 million worth of silicon thin film panels until 2012.

The company did not indicate when it would start filling the orders, but in May the India-based company revealed that trial runs had been satisfactory of its 40-megawatt thin-film photovoltaic plant using a SunFab production line from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT).

"The signing of these key customer contracts is further indication of the rapid growth of our photovoltaic business and the faith of our customers in the thin film technology," Moser Baer CEO Ravi Khanna said in a release.

The India-based company plans to build solar farms with a capacity of up to 500 MW by 2010. As part of this goal, it committed last year to building a 1-to-5 MW solar farm in Rajasthan in western India.

The thin film order adds to the solar panel supply that German companies are stockpiling.

Earlier this year, Ralos Vertriebs signed an agreement to purchase $750 million worth of solar panels from Marlboro, Mass.-based Evergreen Solar (see Evergreen Solar signs $1B in sales contracts). And Atlanta-based Suniva received a $500-million order in August to provide solar cells for the German company Solon (see Suniva, Solon in $500M supply deal).

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