SPI Solar and LDK Solar, its majority shareholder, have signed an agreement to become the primary engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and operations and maintenance (O&M) service provider for KDC Solar’s project pipeline in New Jersey and New York. The three-year contract will see the two firms collaborate on a number of projects, which could be as little as 150MW or as much as 300MW.
The Preferred Provider Agreement, believed to be worth up to US$750 million, follows on from last December’s announcement that SPI would help build KDC’s 5MW project at a White Rose Foods facility in Carteret, New Jersey. It will also enable KDC to more than double the capacity of its solar portfolio in the region, which currently stands at 150MW and generate US$600 million for SPI.
KDC’s CEO, Hal Kamine, said, “SPI’s reputation for designing and building low-cost, high quality commercial solar energy facilities for businesses across the nation, coupled with LDK’s high quality solar panels, will benefit New Jersey and New York. We focus on “behind the meter” projects of 2MWs and larger that supply long term, inexpensive solar electricity to businesses and institutions, which, in turn, bring a significantly reduced cost-of-operation to our customers.
“Our goal is to supply 100% of our customer’s electric needs from our facilities. The bottom line is that we lower a significant cost to do business for our customers through clean solar power, which preserves and creates jobs.”
KDC Solar already has around 18MW of systems under construction, supported by an equity injection of US$225 million from Diamond Castle Holdings, a New York-based private equity fund with more than US$1.8 billion of committed capital under management.
“This agreement is a perfect blend of talent, skill sets and opportunity. It highlights the benefits available to SPI as a result of our recent transaction with LDK,” added Stephen Kircher, CEO of SPI. “Our alliance with LDK now allows SPI to take on multiple projects of greater scope and scale. Additionally, we are pursuing many other large-scale projects that should continue to accelerate our pipeline and revenue into the next few years.”
“Our investment in SPI as a downstream development company is proving successful for both of our companies and those we work with as well,” said Xiaofeng Peng, LDK’s chairman and CEO. “We look forward to expanding our distribution throughout North America and assisting in job retention and new job creation with every new solar energy facility SPI develops.”
