In addition to supplying its Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) thin-filmmodules, First Solar will provide EPC and O&M services to the project,which is part of Jordan’s Ma’an Development Area initiative – an industrialcluster being established in southern Jordan.
The PPA was signed between Jordan’s National Electric PowerCompany and Shams Ma’an Power Generation, in which First Solar’s Germany-based subsidiaryis a shareholder.
The array will be “a regional benchmark for the independentproduction of power”, says Shams Ma’an chief executive Hanna Zaghloul,and will account for roughly 1% of Jordan's total electricity generationcapacity.
Although First Solar bounced back to profitability in 2013 –and chalked up one of the largest profits in the industry – a number of analystsare concerned about the company’s mid-term prospects as the US market shifts fromutility-scale projects in the desert southwest to residential rooftops, wherecrystalline-silicon (c-Si) rivals have an edge.
In response, First Solar last year acquired TetraSun, astart-up focused on high-efficiency c-Si, and it has aggressively pursued workfor its vertically integrated CdTe business in emerging and newly important PV marketsaround the world – from Latin America to India to Japan.
Earlier this week First Solar announced the completion ofits first utility-scale project in Japan; it recently kicked off constructionat the 102MWac Nyngan array, which will become Australia’s largest; and itrecently completed a 13MW array in Dubai – underscoring its sweeping ambitionsfor the Middle East in particular.
Jordan, a country of 6 million people which is highlydependent on gas imports from Egypt, is becoming something of a beachhead forwind and solar energy in the Middle East.
In recent months Germany’s Phoenix Solar won the EPCcontract for the country’s first megawatt-scale PV project (with supply ordersgoing to Trina Solar and SMA Solar), while Vestas confirmed a 117MW turbineorder for the first utility-scale wind farm.
