SunPower Corporation, which designs, manufactures and sells solar cells and solar panels, is looking at setting up a solar cell fabrication facility in Hyderabad. | |
| The subsidiary of San Jose-based Cypress Semiconductor Corporation plans to set up its manufacturing base in Hyderabad in two phases. Each phase will involve an investment of $40 million in equipment alone. |
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| Speaking to Business Standard, Paul D Keswick, executive vice-president, new product development, engineering and information technology, Cypress Semiconductor Corp, said, "We have had discussions with government officials of Andhra Pradesh for setting up a solar cell fabrication facility in Hyderabad and are likely to take a decision in three months." Cypress Semiconductor Corporation purchased a majority interest in SunPower in 2002. |
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| SunPower Corporation already has a fabrication facility outside of Manila. which will undergo its second phase of expansion shortly. For the third and fourth phase, the $78.7 million company is considering locations like Hyderabad apart from Singapore. |
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| These solar cells and solar panels typically generate electricity from sunlight for commercial, residential and remote power applications. Therefore, one of the reasons for SunPower to consider a location in India for its expansion was to tap the market potential of the country as well, Keswick said. |
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| SunPower expects each phase of the facility to have a capacity of 100 megawatts per year with the total employment potential for both the phases being around 1,200. The company expects to end 2006 with revenues of $200 million. |
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| With regard to Cypress' design centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad, Keswick said around 20 per cent of the company's global patents had come from the Indian centres. The company employs around 220 people across both the centres and plans to more than double this number by the end of this year. |
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