Satcon expands partnership with GCL Solar to include strategic manufacturing agreement

BOSTON, USA: Satcon Technology Corp., a leading provider of utility scale power solutions for the renewable energy market, has announced a strategic manufacturing agreement with GCL Solar Systems Limited, one of China’s largest utility solar power plant developers, to enhance production of their industry leading 500 kilowatt (kW) PowerGate Plus line of solar PV inverters for the Asia Pacific market.

Under the terms of the agreement, GCL Solar is commissioning a manufacturing facility in Nanjing, China, which is expected to be capable of producing over 500 megawatts (MW) of production of the 500kW PowerGate Plus inverters in 2011.

Satcon is expected to provide GCL Solar with the core manufacturing processes and technologies for the PowerGate Plus solutions for final assembly at the GCL Solar plant. GCL Solar has agreed to purchase from Satcon the capacity to produce a minimum of 300MW per year out of the GCL Nanjing operation.

The PowerGate Plus 500kW inverters manufactured at the Nanjing facility under this Agreement are expected to be sold by GCL Solar into the Chinese solar PV market, and used on GCL Solar funded utility solar developments around the world.

“Over the past two years, the Chinese government has made significant strides in the development and support of large scale renewable energy resources. In that time period, GCL Solar has become the leading developer of utility scale solar PV plants in all of Asia,” said Dr. Gu, CEO of GCL Solar.

“Our partnership with Satcon has helped our dominant position in this market, and today we announce an even closer agreement with the world’s leading provider of utility scale solar power conversion technologies. This enhanced level of cooperation will help enable us to develop and deliver the world’s most advanced and successful large scale solar plants in both China as well as with our other projects worldwide with the highest levels of reliability and total system quality.”

Production out of the Nanjing manufacturing facility is expected to begin in March of 2011, and when combined with the expanded Burlington, Ontario operations is expected to increase worldwide manufacturing capacity to over 2 annual gigawatts.

“Satcon and GCL have partnered to deliver many of China’s largest and most advanced solar installations to date, with each showcasing the total system value that our partnership brings to the utility scale solar market,” said Steve Rhoades, CEO of Satcon Technology.

“The combination of GCL’s system design and construction expertise and our leading technologies allow us to deliver the next generation of total system value to our customers. As we continue to build upon the strong foundation we have developed in China over the past year with GCL, the expanded partnership will enable us to more effectively address the increasing demand for our large scale solutions together.”