Following on from a series of solar project developer acquisitions, First Solar is acquiring NextLight Renewable Power for approximately US$285 million. NextLight has a project pipeline worth 1.1GW, with sites located in the southwestern United States that range in size from 30MW to 290MW. With its project development acquisitions, First Solar has rapidly become a major player in the U.S. utility renewable power market.
“NextLight has assembled a project pipeline that very much complements First Solar’s project portfolio. We are looking forward to having the highly experienced NextLight team join First Solar,” said Rob Gillette, First Solar’s CEO.
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The acquisition of NextLight gives First Solar 570MW under signed power purchase agreements with western utilities, which increases the company’s contracted solar project pipeline to 2200MW.
According to First Solar, NextLight has an additional 530MW of PV projects that are in various stages of development.
First Solar started targeting the utility market in 2007 with the acquisition of Turner Renewable Energy and continued with the purchases of solar project pipelines from OptiSolar in 2009 and Edison Mission Group in 2010.
