Construction begins at new Evergreen Solar 100 MW China plant

Marlboro, Mass.-based Evergreen Solar (Nasdaq:ESLR) and its contract manufacturing partner Jiawei Solarchina officially broke ground today on a 100 megawatt manufacturing plant in Wuhan, China expected to produce solar wafers, cells and panels.

Under the agreement, Evergreen Solar plans to manufacture its String Ribbon-branded wafer technology using quad furnaces at the leased facility being built on Jiawei’s campus.

Jiawei plans to convert the wafers into Evergreen panels on a contract manufacturing basis. The price paid to Jiawei is expected to be negotiated annually.

Construction is expected to be completed in spring 2010. The companies intend to expand production capacity of their respective manufacturing operations to 500 MW by 2012, with details to be determined next year.

Evergreen manufactures solar products using a silicon wafer technology that it says uses less polysilicon and therefore costs less than conventional processes.

Jiawei already counts Evergreen competitor SunPower as a contract manufacturing client.

In July, Evergreen said it planned to invest $17 million in cash and equipment in the Wuhan facility.

In May, Evergreen initiated a $60 million stock offering to help pay for the Wuhan facility, to purchase capital equipment to further expand its Midland, Mich., factory and for general corporate purposes (see Cash-strapped cleantech firms seek cure in common stock).

Evergreen is likely to be treading carefully with this facility. In January, the company reported spending up to $30.4 million to close a 17 MW pilot facility in Marlboro because of project financing difficulties at another one of its facilities (see Evergreen Solar spending up to $30M to close pilot plant).

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