ICP Solar and EPOD Solar sign LoI for potential merger

MONTREAL, CANADA: ICP Solar Technologies Inc., a developer and marketer of innovative, proprietary solar panels and products, announced that it has signed an LoI with EPOD Solar Inc., a Canadian based company headquartered in Kelowna, British Columbia.

EPOD is a vertically integrated solar energy company that develops and operates a portfolio of solar parks in Europe and North America. EPOD's business covers key phases of solar power business operations from panel manufacturing to power generation. It manufactures solar panels for deployment in its own solar parks and installs the solar panels through its internally developed expertise. EPOD also manufactures and sells solar parks to third party clients.

Strategic partners
-- Peterborough Utilities Inc., an Ontario, Canada based utility company owned by the city of Peterborough with whom EPOD has an option agreement to sell solar parks for over $32 million;

-- Northland Power, a Canadian developer, operator, and owner of power plants with 459 MW of power generating projects in operation or under construction and over 3,600 MW in development with whom EPOD has a binding term sheet in place for the installation of up to 73MW worth of solar parks and whereby Northland Power would contribute 55 percent of the build out costs;

-- Aecon Construction, the largest Canadian publicly traded construction company with a market cap of over $800 million, with whom EPOD has an MOU in place for the co-development of solar parks whereby Aecon Construction would be responsible for the construction activities and would contribute up to 20 percent of the equity needs of 20 megawatts of solar parks.

Manufacturing capacity
EPOD through its Opti Solar Tech Inc. subsidiary owns a 30MW solar panel manufacturing facility in Hayward, California which utilizes its proprietary amorphous silicon solar PV manufacturing technology and is working with the Canadian, Ontario and German governments in obtaining a grant and Loans for a solar panel manufacturing facility in Ontario, Canada and Thuringen, Germany.

"ICP Solar's potential merger with EPOD Solar would represent a great opportunity for the shareholders of both companies and move ICP further along its new strategic direction. The senior management of both companies has many years of combined, complementary solar industry experience and the agreements that EPOD has in place with significant strategic partners should greatly assist the combined companies in benefitting from the significant growth of the solar power industry," said Sass Peress, CEO of ICP solar.

"As well, we are still very committed to the consumer goods market and that this merger gives us far greater leverage in vendor supply arrangements than ever before."