Coming on the heels of last week's announcement that concentrating solar power (CSP) manufacturer Stirling Energy Systems is bankrupt and liquidating, this week German-based Solar Millenium announced that it has sold its entire project portfolio for the Southwestern U.S. to solarhybrid AG, a German project development company.

The entire project portfolio, which includes 2.25 GW of planned CSP power plants, will be converted to PV. Solar Millennium AG will still receive profits upon construction of the power plants in the U.S. in addition to being reimbursed its entire investment in the projects, the announcement said.

Negotiations are underway and the companies say that they should be completed by the end of this month.  solarhybrid is currently performing a due-diligence assessment but has paid a first installment.

The companies indicate that other industry partners could be included in the projects but declined to specify who they might tap and in what capacity they might be included.

Solar Millennium said that it will now focus on new and already planned solar-thermal and hybrid power plants in Europe, Asia, North Africa and Latin America and expand its respective technology platforms. The company’s 50-MW Andasol 3 solar power plant was just completed in Spain last Friday.

Solar Millenium said it would come back to the U.S. as a parabolic trough CSP project developer “as soon as the demand for storable solar energy starts growing there once again.”

solarhybrid anticipates it could begin construction on the first American project — the 1,000 MW Blythe plant in California — as early as 2013.

No further details about the transaction were available.