New Largest Residential Solar Energy Project

The system also sets a new size record for SolarWorld’s increasingly popular Sunkits® solar systems. The turn-key system program enables electrical contractors who wish to undertake solar installation to do so while continuing to specialize in their strong suits: gathering site-specific details from their customers and completing electrical-installation work on-site. They rely on SolarWorld to tailor-design each system and on SolarWorld’s distribution partners to coordinate ordering of system components and shipping to customer properties. The approach lets all three business partners maximize efficiencies and grow their solar businesses.

The new record-breaking system in Southern California – installed by SRC Inc., an electrical contractor based in Vista, Calif. – came from the Ramona, Calif., branch of Consolidated Electrical Distributors Inc., a wholesale electrical distribution company based in Irving, Texas.

Eddie Freeman, manager of the CED-Ramona office, expects Sunkits sales to grow about 50 percent to end 2011 at about $1.5 million. While the 150-kilowatt system is far bigger than CED-Ramona’s average 5-kilowatt Sunkits® system, Freeman forecasts that unit sales will approach 100 this year. The solar sales – virtually all Sunkits® – come amid a prolonged nationwide slump in the office’s key industry, residential construction. “With Sunkits, I have been able to show growth through this slow time,” Freeman said.

Many electrical installers, Freeman said, find that Sunkits systems spare them from needing to research and master the design intricacies of optimizing solar system performance and calculating and gathering the correct type and number of system components for each project. “SolarWorld and Sunkits® work for them,” Freeman said. “My electrical contractors would rather spend their time on the installation than the design. Plus, they get peace of mind from knowing the system has been designed in a way that assures nothing has been overlooked.”

Aside from 600 250-watt mono-crystalline SolarWorld Sunmodules™, the system comprises 15 inverters from SMA America, racking from Prosolar Professional Solar Inc. as well as hundreds of units of general electrical and hardware supplies.

SolarWorld (ISIN: DE0005108401) is a worldwide leader in offering brand-name, high quality, crystalline solar-power technology. Its strength is its fully integrated solar production. From silicon as the raw material through wafers, cells and modules all the way to turn-key solar systems of all sizes, the group combines all stages of the solar value chain. The central business activity is selling quality modules into the installation and distribution trades and crystalline wafers to the international solar cell industry. Group headquarters are located in Bonn, Germany. The group’s largest production facilities operate in Freiberg, Germany, and Hillsboro in the U.S. state of Oregon. Sustainability is the basis of the group strategy. Under the name Solar2World, the group supports care projects using off-grid solar-power solutions in developing countries, exemplifying sustainable economic development. Worldwide, SolarWorld employs about 3,800 people. SolarWorld AG has been quoted on the stock exchange since 1999 and today is listed on, among others, the TecDAX and ÖkoDAX as well as in the sustainability index NAI.

www.SolarWorld.com