3 September 2012

OPEL to sell solar assets to Northern States Metals

OPEL Technologies Inc of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and its subsidiary OPEL Solar Inc, which makes high-concentration photovoltaic (HCPV) panels and solar tracker systems, have entered into an agreement involving the sale of most of its solar assets to Northern States Metals (NSM) of West Hartford, CT (which has manufacturing facilities in Youngstown, OH, USA and Toronto, Ontario, Canada).

In June OPEL appointed Peter Copetti as an executive board member and chair of a special committee established by the board of directors to diversify the firm out of the solar sector. 

The deal is subject to NSM completing its due diligence review and execution of definitive legal documentation. Completion of a definitive agreement is conditional, among other things, upon the firm being able to enter into satisfactory repayment arrangements with its solar creditors. Completion is also conditional on OPEL being able to enter into satisfactory arrangements with certain of its employees and consultants. Assuming that all conditions are satisfied, the transaction is expected to be completed in late September.

“It broadens our Solar FlexRack product line [a PV mounting system that came to market in 2009 and now has more than 350MW worth of systems installed in North America], and OPEL’s Solar Tracker is perfect for the kind of utility-scale projects that we’re now targeting,” says NSM’s president & CEO Tom Meola. “The OPEL Tracker technology is a proven system that is designed to increase the yield of a photovoltaic system by up to 30%. It eliminates inter-row shadowing, allowing for larger systems to be installed in a smaller area,” he adds.

“Solar FlexRack has been successfully marketed as the mounting system with the fastest installation time, substantially lowering labor costs,” Meola continues. “Likewise, the OPEL Solar Tracker is designed for efficient installation – a complete 10kW system can be assembled in less than four hours,” he reckons. 

“The OPEL Tracker acquisition fits well with the NSM mission to continually lower the balance of system costs for large solar projects,” Meola comments.

“Completion of this sale will enable OPEL to achieve its objective, announced on 20 June, of divesting its Solar Division in order to focus on the POET platform technology of OPEL’s ODIS [OPEL Defense Integrated Systems] Division [of Shelton, CT, USA],” says OPEL’s president & CEO Leon Pierhal.

A core component of OPELs strategy is to continue to develop the POET platform, which enables monolithic fabrication of gallium arsenide (GaAs) integrated circuits containing both electronic and optical elements on a single wafer. The technology has been developed over the past 18 years by chief scientist Dr Geoff Taylor and his team. The firm has 36 patents issued and 14 patents pending in both its PV systems and for its semiconductor POET process.

See related items:

OPEL’s AGM confirms strategy to focus on POET technology and divest solar division

Tags: OPEL Technologies CPV GaAs ICS

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