China’s ENN Enters USA Solar Market With Duke Energy
American energy provider Duke Energy and China's largest clean energy developer ENN are teaming up to build large-scale solar power plants in the United States.
Under an agreement signed, ENN and Duke Energy are beginning a partnership that could see the construction of vast solar farms and locally distributed generation solar projects, which produce electricity near where the energy is used.
“ENN and Duke Energy have very complementary strengths,” said Wang Yusuo, chairman of ENN. “We are both dedicated to the development and use of low-carbon, clean energy sources to combat the climate crisis facing all humanity.”
“This agreement shows China is on the front lines of the clean energy, conservation and emission reduction business. China has a long-history of importing technologies but we are reversing that trend,” said Mr. Wang.
Today's signing flows from an agreement announced on Sept. 23 at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting where the companies pledged to work together to push the development of low-carbon and clean energy technologies.
“When we announced our intent to collaborate last month, I said that we must move at ‘China speed' to combat global warming,” said Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers. “Duke Energy's partnership with ENN will not only accelerate the development of solar power in the U.S., but help achieve economies of scale and drive the cost of renewable energy down.”
Duke's large share of the U.S. energy market and ENN's world leading solar panels and system integration technologies are what brought the two companies together so quickly.
“The partnership with Duke enhances ENN's overseas expansion and the commercialization of our technologies. It's a great opportunity for ENN to prove and promote its clean energy solutions in U.S. market,” said Mr. Wang.
Dr. Gan, vice chairman of ENN Board of Directors, on behalf of ENN Solar Energy, along Keith Trent, president and group executive of Duke Energy's Commercial Businesses, and Wouter van Kempen, president of Duke Energy Generation Services (DEGS), signed the agreement at ENN's Golden Elephant Hotel located in the Langfang Economic and Technological Development Zone.
DEGS owns and operates more than 630 megawatts (MW) of wind power projects in the U.S. and plans to add another 350 MW by the end of 2010.
ENN Solar Energy is an international company that produces world-leading silicon thin film solar modules. It has also created an innovative system of integrated solar power stations. It operates China's first silicon thin-film photovoltaic module production line. ENN Solar Energy's PV modules are 5.7 m? among the largest in the world. The production line's capacity of the super-sized modules has reached 70 MW, which the company plans to expand to 500MW over the next two years. ENN Solar Energy's PV modules have achieved eight percent conversion efficiency with further technological advances aiming to increase the conversion rate to 12 percent.
