[LINK] world's largest solar plant

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

First Solar to Build Huge Chinese Solar Plant

Tue Sep 8, 2009 1:30pm EDT  By Matt Daily
<http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5874XC20090908>


NEW YORK (Reuters) - First Solar Inc said on Tuesday it plans to build
the world's largest solar plant, in China, in the first major foray by
a U.S. company into the Asian nation's fast growing alternative energy
sector.

First Solar will build a 2-gigawatt power plant, enough to power about 
 3 million Chinese households, at Ordos City, in Inner Mongolia.

The project is part of China's program to generate 10 percent of its
energy from renewable resources by 2010 and 15 percent by 2020 to help
meet its growing energy appetite that has made the country the world's
top emitter of carbon dioxide.

"In most people's heads, (solar) is a nice little niche thing," First
Solar Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Ahearn told Reuters. 

"Having a demonstration of something that's nuclear plant size will begin
to change that image."

Such a project would cost about $6 billion to build in the U.S.
Southwest, but First Solar expects lower costs in China.

LOWEST COST PRODUCER: First Solar is the world's lowest-cost producer
of photovoltaic modules, which turn sunlight into electricity, with a
manufacturing cost for its cadmium telluride-based modules of about 87
cents per kilowatt.  

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Cheers,
Stephen