AMERICAN solar cell maker SunPower Corp. will pump in P13 billion into a new facility at the First Philippine Industrial Park in Tanauan, Batangas to expand its production line in the country. SunPower chief executive Tom Warner said that this is more than what it poured into its first facility at the Laguna Technopark in 2004, worth $150 million or roughly P7.5 billion. SunPower's Laguna facility represented 34 percent of the total 2005 registered investments with the Philippine Export Zone Authority (Peza), making it the largest for that year. With its new Batangas facility, SunPower will be increasing its manufacturing lines to ten from the existing four lines in Laguna. The Batangas plant, which started construction this year and is 50-percent complete, sits on a 7.6-hectare property. The main manufacturing plant covers four hectares. The new facility is expected to employ 3,500 workers. It will be fully operational by the middle of next year. The Laguna plant sits on a bigger 8.8-hectare property. But the main building covers only about 2.5 hectares. SunPower employs 1,000 people in this facility. "Solar [power] is becoming more and more of an energy option because countries want to be independent ... they want to have their own energy source," Warner said. SunPower built the first silicon wafer fab production facility in the Philippines in 2004. Each manufacturing line produces roughly $75 million worth of products a year. One line produces 8 million solar cells a year, or roughly 25,000 solar cells a day. SunPower's biggest markets are Germany, Japan and California in the United States, with emerging demand from Southern Europe and Korea. SunPower--which is based in Sunnyvale, California--designs, manufactures and sells solar-electric power products. It is 70-percent owned by Cypress Semiconductor Corp., while the public accounted for the rest by virtue of its listed status on the New York Stock Exchange. Its revenues, which all come from its Philippine manufacturing lines, are estimated to grow to $235 million this year, from $80 million in 2005. In the third quarter alone, SunPower reported its revenues had hit $65 million. Warner said SunPower is now studying plans to set up facilities in India, Vietnam and Singapore. Related Site:
SunPower Corp. | 
