MEMC Electronic Materials Inc.
With the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry in a downturn on the heels of the worst recession in U.S. history, and the price of PV module parts plummeting, it’s good to read some positive news for a change.
Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) and SunEdison LLC, a subsidiary of MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. (NYSE: WFR), said today Wells Fargo subsidiaries will invest up to $120 million to fund U.S. solar photovoltaic distributed generation power projects developed by SunEdison over the next year. The program builds on a SunEdison solar investment fund established in 2007 in which Wells Fargo invested more than $200 million in approximately 150 solar projects developed by SunEdison in eight states.
MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. (NYSE: WFR) subsidiary SunEdison LLC said today the Ontario Power Authority has confirmed that the company has met the 60% domestic content requirements of the Ontario feed-in-tariff (FIT) program for solar projects. This means the company’s solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, to be manufactured at a new facility in Newmarket, Ontario beginning in Q2 2011, will be accepted in FIT projects in the province.
The week began strongly, paused on turmoil throughout the Middle East, and then finished higher with solid corporate earnings reports overcoming mediocre U.S. employment data. The green sector indices and ETFs narrowly beat the broad indices.
Shares of semiconductor and solar technology technology company MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. (NYSE: WFR) were trading up more than 13 percent at mid-day after announcing Fiscal 2010 and Q4 financial results that were dramatically higher than 2009. The company also forecast profits of 40 percent to 300 percent higher for 2011.
OTHER NEWS: Ormat Technologies, LDK Solar, Power-One
EBOOM CAPITAL reported on Saturday that GT Solar International, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOLR) was the fourth best performing company in the EnergyBoom Clean 100 Index (E•B Clean 100) last week. Here are two other critical pieces of information about GT Solar.
First, the company’s shares have appreciated head and shoulders above other U.S.-based solar companies during 2010 -- up 43 percent so far this year. In fact, among the seven U.S. companies in the EnergyBoom Solar Subindex (E•B Solar), GT Solar is the only company in positive territory.
U.S. venture capital investment in cleantech companies in Q3 fell 55 percent in capital invested and 22 percent in number of deals, compared with Q3 2009, according to accounting and consulting firm Ernst & Young.
SunEdison, headquartered in Beltsville, Maryland, will soon start construction on the largest photovoltaic solar power plant in Europe in Rovigo, Italy.
