Spire to send solar line to India

Bedford, Mass.-based Spire (NASDAQ: SPIR) today announced it will provide a turnkey solar photovoltaic line to PLG Power Limited, the energy and power division of PLG Group, in India.

According to Spire, the Spi-Line purchased is a semi-automated crystalline cell module manufacturing line capable of producing up to 25 MW of solar modules per year.

“The photovoltaics market is expanding exponentially in India and is expected to grow by more than 500% in the next few years,” said Roger Little, chairman and CEO of Spire Corporation.

In the first half of this year alone, Spire announced turkey solar line deals with BTCP (Russia), Alpex Exports (India), Dongyang Creditech (South Korea) and Fluitecnick S.A. (Spain).

Spire is not the only one delivering solar factories in a box.

Other solar equipment manufacturers include Applied Materials, Despatch, GT Solar, Oerlikon Solar and 3S Swiss Solar Systems.

With its SunFab Thin Film solar line, Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) is also churning out orders and satisfying the need for pre-packaged solar factories.

Last month, Applied’s first SunFab customer, Moser Baer, announced it successfully completed trials of its first Gen 8.5 thin film plant—a 40MW facility in Greater Noida, India.

The testing appears to have been successful, as Moser Baer signed a memorandum of understanding worth more than $1.5 billion for additional thin film photovoltaic equipment (see Applied Materials gets $1.9B solar equipment order).

In more recent Applied deals, Sunfilm AG, a Good Energies and NorSun joint venture, announced it would also by a second SunFab Thin Film line.

Sunfilm’s subsequent thin film line is to be installed next to the initial line, in Grossroehrsdorf, near Dresden, Germany.

The initial line is expected to begin production runs this July, with the second line scheduled for startup summer 2009. The two lines are to bring Sunfilm’s annual capacity at the German site to over 120 MW.

Shares of Spire rose somewhat on the news today, closing the day at $13.81, up just over 1 percent.