Apple Buys First Solar Arizona Manufacturing Facility
Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.
Apple has reportedly purchased First Solar’s solar module manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona, manufacturing facility. The factory reportedly never started producing any solar modules, and it is sheltered by the largest rooftop solar array in Arizona.
The thin-film solar market was hit pretty hard by the tremendous solar PV cost drop that occurred over the past few years. The First Solar factory was prepared for massive thin-film solar expansion, but this was apparently undercut by the solar PV revolution. First Solar, which seems to be selling the facility for $115 million, “announced in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it expected to take a $55-60 million hit on the module production line,” pv magazine writes.
It’s unclear what Apple will actually use the manufacturing facility for, but it made the purchase through a data server company that serves Apple.
“Apple has so far been coy on its plans but the Arizona Commerce Authority announced last week that the electronics mega corp would be coming to Arizona and creating 700 high quality jobs – as well as 1,300 construction posts – in Mesa as part of a planned new manufacturing facility.”
Keep up with the latest solar power news by keeping an eye on our solar power category or even subscribing to our solar power newsletter (it’s free!).
Image Credit: Apple via Andrey Bayda / Shutterstock.com
Sign up for CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica's Comment Policy
