Spire Corp. says its recent 53,000 square-foot solar manufacturing facility expansion, together with its refocused Spire Semiconductor solar-cell concentrator operations, are on track to significantly grow the company's revenue in the solar energy and solar capital equipment markets.
The company estimates that at full capacity, its Bedford, Mass., headquarters facility can produce solar capital equipment valued at approximately $200 million in annual revenues. Based upon currently contracted backlog and anticipated delivery schedules for equipment, the company projects total revenues for 2008 to be approximately $80 million, primarily generated from the sale of solar capital equipment and turnkey solar factories.
‘We're in the midst of a historic expansion of capacity in the solar field, with manufacturers around the globe scrambling to bring factories on line to take advantage of the coming availability of silicon solar feedstocks,’ says Roger Little, Spire's chairman and CEO. ‘We've undertaken a dramatic increase in our facility to meet this demand, nearly doubling our manufacturing square footage and more than doubling our headcount in the past year.
The Spire Semiconductor facility will participate in the expansion by servicing the fast-growing gallium arsenide (GaAs) concentrator solar cell market, Little adds. The facility has the capacity to produce the equivalent of approximately 50 MW of 500-sun concentration, high-efficiency, multiple-junction concentrator cells, Spire says.
