First Solar has already sold out of solar photovoltaic (PV) module capacity for 2015, and for most of 2016, according to the most recent figures.
Overall, the company beat analyst predictions pretty handily — coming in with net sales of $896 million for the second quarter, accompanied by a 1:1 book-to-bill ratio. This amounts to a rise from the first quarter of nearly $427 million in net sales, mostly due to “increased revenue recognition on the Silver State South project and the sale of majority interests in the North Star and Lost Hills-Blackwell projects.”
The company saw 537 megawatts (MW) of new order bookings — resulting in year-to-date bookings rising to 1.4 gigawatts (GW). Amongst these, are the 200 MW booking for the second phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum project in Dubai, and the 100 MW booking for a project with NV Energy.
Second quarter GAAP earnings came to $0.93 per fully diluted share, as compared to a drop of $0.62 in the first quarter.
Greentech Media provides a bit more:
The solar module engineering and manufacturing part of the company had a fleet average module conversion efficiency of 15.4%. Its best production line is now shipping solar modules with efficiencies of 16.2%. The CEO said he expects the entire fleet to be running at that level by the end of the year. Modules built at the company’s Malaysian facility have a cost of less than 40 cents per watt. First Solar has visibility on 16.7 gigawatts of potential bookings.
First Solar’s CEO Jim Hughes stated during a recent earnings call that there was likely to be some “softness in the US market in 2017,” before going on to note the expectation of further growth in the Middle East, India, Japan, Turkey, and Latin America.
