The facility, which is located in a 135-acre site in Mesa, will include four manufacturing lines with a capacity to produce more than 250MW of advanced thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules per year.
The module factory will include a 3MW rooftop solar installation as well as an extensive ground-mounted PV testing facility.
Construction of the new factory is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2011 and is expected to last a year.
Module shipments are scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2012.
The factory will utilize First Solar’s continuous manufacturing process which transforms a sheet of glass into a complete solar module in less than 2.5 hours.
