Beijing - US firm First Solar on Tuesday said it had agreed to build what could become the world's largest solar power plant in China's Inner Mongolia region. Arizona-based First Solar said in a statement that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government to build a 2- gigawatt solar plant near Inner Mongolia's Ordos city. First Solar said Wu Bangguo, the official number two in China's ruling Communist Party, attended the signing ceremony during a visit to Arizona.
"This major commitment to solar power is a direct result of the progressive energy policies being adopted in China to create a sustainable, long-term market for solar and a low carbon future for China," First Solar chief executive Mike Ahearn said at the signing ceremony.
"We are proud to be announcing this precedent-setting project today," Ahearn said. "It represents an encouraging step forward toward the mass-scale deployment of solar power worldwide to help mitigate climate change concerns."
The Ordos solar power planet would be completed over 10 years, the US company said. Phase 1 would be a 30-megawatt demonstration project scheduled to start construction by June 1, 2010.
Phases 2, 3 and 4 were scheduled to add 100 megawatts, 870 megawatts and 1,000 megawatts with completion in 2014 for the first two and 2019 for the final phase, the company said in a statement.
China had guaranteed the long-term pricing of electricity from the plant through a "feed-in tariff" which would be "critical to this project", Ahearn said.
"We are very pleased to be partnering with one of the solar industry's global technology leaders in a project of such significance to Ordos's low carbon future," it quoted Cao Zhichen, the vice mayor of Ordos, as saying.
