Greentech Lead America: GE has sold its global cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar intellectual property portfolio to First Solar. GE received 1.75 million shares of First Solar common stock as part of this transaction.
The development comes soon after GE announced it is scrapping the plan to build the largest solar factory in the U.S. GE is also closing down its research center that developed the thin-film solar-cell technology for the plant.
The partnership will benefit the industry as it will accelerate the development of cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar module performance and improve efficiency at manufacturing scale. In addition, GE Global Research and First Solar R&D will collaborate on future technology development to further advance CdTe solar technology.
GE has also announced plans to enhance its presence in solar through access to purchasing and branding First Solar’s modules for future global GE deployments, in addition to its investment in inverters, controls, balance of plant and ownership of utility scale systems. Under a commercial partnership, First Solar will continue to purchase inverters from GE Energy Management for use in First Solar’s global solar deployments to optimize electrical balance of plant.
The collaboration is expected to lead to an improvement in solar grid integration, more competitive cost structures and a roadmap for combined electrical equipment.
First Solar’s existing manufacturing sites will be used to further advance CdTe technology and achieve an increasingly competitive cost position. GE has decided to discontinue the build-out of its Aurora, Colorado, solar manufacturing facility.