Evergreen Solar continues to impress

Evergreen Solar , a developer and manufacturer of PV modules, has come a long way since 2003 when losses peaked at just under USD 15 million. Today it capitalises at $675m and in its just announced Q3 results achieved positive product gross margin of 10.4 percent. This compares with negative 29.0 percent for the third quarter of 2004 and positive 6.2 percent in the second quarter of 2005. The turn-around came in Q4 2004, when the company achieved its first positive gross margins. Then came their joint venture with Q-Cells (also a listed solar stock) in Germany to build a 30 -megawatt solar wafer, cell and module manufacturing plant in Germany.

Evergreen has been fantastically well positioned in the solar boom because their proprietary string ribbon manufacturing technology, means that they can significantly reduce the need for silicon - a very high cost input - and achieve similar effects. This gives them an edge over many other solar firms, because the cost of silicon has risen from $9 a kilo in 2000 to $60 today.

Today, they have also announced their biggest sales contract to date - a minimum of $70 million of photovoltaic (PV) modules to PowerLight over the next four years.