Evergreen Solar announced a sales agreement and financial results on November 4, 2005 which said in part:
Evergreen Solar, Inc., a manufacturer of solar power products with its proprietary, low-cost String Ribbon(TM) wafer technology, today announced its largest sales agreement to date. Evergreen Solar and PowerLight Corporation have entered into a definitive agreement for a guaranteed contract which calls for Evergreen Solar to ship a minimum of $70 million of photovoltaic (PV) modules to PowerLight over the next four years. There are defined options which could increase the value of the shipments in the contract to approximately $170 million. Shipments to PowerLight are scheduled to commence during the first half of 2006.
It is currently anticipated that these materials will be produced at Evergreen Solar's manufacturing plant in Massachusetts and EverQ's 30-megawatt facility, which is currently under construction in Thalheim, Germany. EverQ is a strategic partnership between Evergreen Solar and Q-Cells AG, the world's largest independent manufacturer of crystalline silicon solar cells.
Evergreen Solar's patented String Ribbon wafer technology enables the Company to manufacture solar wafers, cells and modules more efficiently than conventional methods. This proprietary technology generates nearly one-and-a-half times as much power per pound of refined silicon as conventional methods.
In their third quarter financial results they said:
"In Thalheim, we remain on track with our aggressive construction schedule. We anticipate installing our first pieces of manufacturing equipment in the facility by the end of 2005. We expect to begin manufacturing our first wafers in the Thalheim plant in the first quarter of 2006, with full-scale production slated to commence during the summer of 2006."
For the quarter ended October 1, 2005, product revenues were $11.1 million, nearly double the $5.6 million reported for the third quarter of 2004 and an increase of 4 percent from the $10.7 million reported in the second quarter of 2005. For the third quarter of 2005, Evergreen Solar achieved positive product gross margin of 10.4 percent. This compares with negative 29.0 percent for the third quarter of 2004 and positive 6.2 percent in the second quarter of 2005.
Net loss attributable to common stockholders for the third quarter of 2005 was $4.6 million, or $0.07 per share, compared with a net loss of $4.6 million, or $0.10 per share, for the third quarter of 2004. For the third quarter of 2005, weighted average shares outstanding were approximately 61.2 million. Third-quarter 2004 earnings per share figures were based on approximately 47.5 million weighted average shares outstanding.
This company is rapidly moving foreword on it string ribbon technology. They are able to produce cells on a continuous basis without sawing of ingots, thus less labor and practically no waste. They do suffer from a lower efficiency, but still can generate 50% more power than conventional silicon cells per pound of silicon. They are developing their process to produce thinner cells with higher efficiency which they hope to demonstrate on a production scale by the end of the year. It sounds like a very promising technology.
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