Etrion & SunPower To Build 4-MW of Solar Italy | Renewable Energy News Article

California, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] Etrion Corporation and SunPower Corp. announced an agreement to build four solar power plants, totaling 4 megawatts, in the Puglia region of southern Italy. SunPower will design and construct the plants, and provide operations and maintenance services.

SunPower is installing proprietary SunPower Tracker technology at the Italian sites. The Italian bank, Centrobanca, is providing 83 percent of the financing for the project, while an Etrion subsidiary is contributing 17 percent of anticipated project costs.

"SunPower offers a unique value proposition to power plant developers in terms of technology and bankability. Our proprietary Trackers optimize our clients' return on investment while our solid balance sheet and rigorous contract guarantees give financial institutions confidence," said SunPower European Sales Director Mario Riello. "We are very pleased to partner with Etrion to deliver clean, reliable solar power to the rapidly expanding Italian market."

Construction of the first of the four projects is targeted to begin by the end of this month. The first electricity sales from the projects under the Italian feed-in-tariff regime are expected during the third quarter of 2010.