First Solar – Statistics and Facts

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Published on: November 8, 2020 / update from: November 9, 2020 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

First Solar – Semiconductor manufacturing company – Image: IgorGolovniov|Shutterstock.com

First Solar, Inc. is an international photovoltaic company headquartered in the USA. First Solar is a manufacturer of low-cost thin-film solar modules, developer of large-scale solar parks and provider of operations and maintenance services. The United States-based company emerged from Solar Cells, Inc. and was renamed First Solar in 1999. It began manufacturing commercial products in 2002 and became one of the largest solar manufacturers and the largest solar entrepreneur in the world in 2010.

In 2014, First Solar in the USA installed photovoltaic systems with more solar power output than any other company with an addition of 1,023 megawatts, ahead of the MA Mortenson Company with an addition of 512.9 megawatts and ahead of SolarCity with 502 megawatts.

In 2018, First Solar ranked sixth in a list of the solar industry's largest companies. Along with the Canadian-Chinese company Canadian Solar, it was the only company in the top ten with headquarters outside Asia. In its 2019 fiscal year, First Solar reported an operating loss of $161.79 billion. It was the fourth year since 2007 that the company posted an annual operating loss. The uncertainty surrounding the expiration of government subsidies, tax incentives and other financial support for the deployment of renewable energy is largely shaping First Solar's performance. This is particularly true in large markets such as the United States and India, which are First Solar's main sales areas. Nevertheless, the company was valued at over $5 billion in July 2020, making it one of the leading solar companies in terms of market capitalization.

First Solar primarily produces cadmium telluride-based photovoltaic modules and has developed new technologies that have broken several solar efficiency records. The company continues to invest heavily in research and development to further increase the efficiency of the company's thin film module technologies. Cadmium telluride solar cells are a type of thin film solar cell and are manufactured by First Solar using 30 different types of raw materials. To reduce its waste footprint, the company was the first in the industry to introduce a module take-back and recycling program.

First Solar was the first solar company to reduce its own production costs to less than $1 per watt.

The company was formed from the sale of Solar Cell Inc. (SCI) to True North Partners, part of the Walton family, which founded Wal-Mart.

In Germany, the company was mainly represented at two locations: Frankfurt (Oder) was the headquarters of the production facility of First Solar Manufacturing GmbH, with Burghard von Westerholt as managing director and factory manager of the production facility there, which, according to an announcement in April 2012, would close at the end of the year were closed in 2012. Mainz was the headquarters of the European sales company First Solar GmbH, with its managing director Christopher Burghardt. Together with other locations in Europe, around 150 jobs were lost. The company employed more than 1,400 people at its two German locations.