ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604270013
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FREDERICK, MD.
SOURCE: DAVID DISHNEAU ASSOCIATED PRESS
The sun is rising on Solarex, the nation's largest maker of solar power systems.
Lower production costs and higher Third World demand for electricity helped boost its sales by 30 percent last year, and the future looks bright.
``Two billion people live in conditions without electricity,'' said Solarex president Harvey Forest ``We've been able to sell into countries where there is a need for electricity.''
In its biggest deal, Solarex will supply equipment for the world's largest photovoltaic power plant in the Thar desert of Rajasthan, India. The plant, to be built by Solarex parent Amoco/Enron Solar, will have a capacity of 50 megawatts - enough to light up 10,000 homes.
Solarex also has supplied solar modules for thousands of smaller applications in South Africa, Indonesia, Peru, Morocco, Pakistan and Latin America.
But demand isn't limited to developing nations. Solarex recently announced a deal to provide solar power modules for the world's largest rooftop installation - 500 kilowatts - atop the Trade and Technology Center in Bonn, Germany.
That project will surpass a 340 kilowatt installation atop Georgia Tech University's natatorium - site of this summer's Olympic swimming and diving events - also built with Solarex parts.
Why has solar energy - an offspring of the 1973 Arab oil embargo - become so hot, again? Two reasons: lower production costs and higher demand for electricity in remote locations.
In the past 20 years, the cost of photovoltaic power - electricity from sunlight - has dropped to about 18 cents per kilowatt hour from around $2 per kilowatt hour, according to Allan L. Frank, editor and publisher of The Solar Letter in Silver Spring, Md.
A kilowatt hour is 1,000 watts per hour. A 500-watt refrigerator would consume one kilowatt every two hours.
Solar power is still about twice the price of electricity produced by burning fossil fuels, but it is cheap enough for use in places or projects that would otherwise require stringing wires or toting fuel over long distances, Frank said.
``If you want to bring economic development and you have no electricity, you don't have much chance. If you want to set up little shops, photovoltaics are one way to do that. If you want to have children in the village study at night, you can't do that easily with candles and kerosene lanterns but you can do it with photovoltaics,'' he said.
New cellular telephone systems in many developing nations also depend on solar energy to power the remote relay stations that transfer the signal, Forest said.
He said about two-thirds of Solarex's sales are overseas to both developing nations and industrialized nations - especially Germany and Japan - that are embracing solar power.
Solarex and the rest of the solar power industry struggled through the mid-1980s when government subsidies for solar installations were cut. The Bush administration's public-private partnership approach to solar subsidies fostered renewed growth, especially for companies that had honed their productivity, Forest said.
The company's sales topped $40 million last year, and Forest said Solarex was profitable in 1994 and 1995, but he wouldn't provide details.
The company has benefited from a December 1994 decision by then-parent Amoco Corp. of Chicago to sell 50 percent of Solarex to Houston-based natural gas producer Enron Corp., creating Amoco/Enron Solar. Enron's links to the power utility business paved the way for large-scale commercial solar applications, Forest said.
He hopes to build that business with a new generation of solar modules employing technology that should enable Solarex to produce them at half the cost of its standard product.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB