First Solar announced the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the new thin-film solar module manufacturing facility at Dong Nam Industrial Park in Vietnam. The new facility is worth $300 million.
The commercial production will begin in 2012 and the new plant will manufacture over 250MW of advanced, thin-film PV modules per year on four manufacturing lines. First Solar also plans for a 3MW of solar module installation on the rooftop of its facility. The new Vietnam plant has been designed for increasing energy efficiency. The new facility near Ho Chi Minh City will employ First Solar’s continuous production process that converts a glass sheet into a complete thin-film PV module within a time period of two and a half hours.
The plant will house a recycling plant, which signifies the importance of life cycle management and corporate responsibility. All the manufacturing facilities of the company are ISO certified for quality and environmental standards.
Bruce Sohn, First Solar’s President, states that the company’s Dong Nam factory will help in the new plan and increase of production capacity by 2012.
