First Solar Inc

We are America’s leading PV solar technology and manufacturing company. The only U.S.-headquartered company among the world’s largest solar manufacturers, First Solar is focused on competitively and reliably enabling power generation needs with our advanced, uniquely American thin film PV technology. Developed at R&D labs in California and Ohio, our technology provides a competitive, high-performance, and responsibly produced alternative to conventional crystalline silicon PV solar modules. Our PV solar modules are produced using a fully integrated, continuous process that does not rely on Chinese crystalline silicon supply chains.

We are the world’s largest thin film PV solar module manufacturer and the largest PV solar module manufacturer in the Western Hemisphere. In addressing the overall global demand for electricity, PV solar modules provide energy at a lower levelized cost of electricity ("LCOE"), meaning the net present value of a system’s total life cycle costs divided by the quantity of energy that is expected to be produced over the system’s life, when compared to traditional forms of energy generation. With over $2 billion in cumulative R&D investments in the last 20 years, we have a demonstrated history of innovation and continuous improvement. We believe our strategies and points of differentiation provide the foundation for our competitive position and enable us to remain one of the preferred providers of PV solar modules.

Our current module semiconductor structure is a single-junction polycrystalline thin film that uses CdTe as the absorption layer. CdTe has absorption properties that are well matched to the solar spectrum and can deliver competitive performance using approximately 2% to 3% of the amount of semiconductor material used to manufacture conventional crystalline silicon modules. In terms of performance, in many climates our solar modules provide certain energy production advantages relative to competing crystalline silicon modules. For example, our CdTe solar technology provides:

a superior temperature coefficient, which results in stronger system performance in typical high insolation climates as the majority of a system’s generation, on average, occurs when module temperatures are well above 25 C (standard test conditions);