Signet Solar picks Chennai for India manufacturing plant

Menlo Park, Calif.-based Signet Solar announced today that it picked Chennai, India, for the location of its second manufacturing facility.

Signet Solar, which makes thin-film photovoltaic modules, said its decision to expand follows more than $400 million in advance orders for the first three years of production.

"We are on schedule to start shipping products from our Dresden, Germany, manufacturing plant by Q3 2008 and plan to begin shipments from India by 2010, with a goal of achieving grid parity pricing within the next five years," said Rajeeva Lahri, CEO and founder of Signet Solar.

"We have strong demand in Europe and the U.S. and are pleased that our customers have shown confidence in our engineering capabilities and our global strategy to produce high quality modules on a large scale."

The cost of the new plant was not disclosed, but last year the company said it could invest up to $2 billion USD in India (see Signet Solar to make thin-film modules in India).

The company said its German plant would have a total annual production capacity of 60 megawatts. Signet Solar plans to boost its capacity to over 100 MW in Germany by 2010.

Signet Solar said it picked India for its second plant because of the attractive incentives offered by the government as well as an emerging demand for renewable energy in the country.