Lopez Group's solar unit plans to expand overseas

Sto.Tomas, Batangas, Philippines — First Philec Solar Corp. (FPSC), a unit of the Lopez group, is planning to aggressively expand its operations overseas.

FPSC president and CEO Dan Lachica told a press briefing here that the company is currently exploring possible joint venture arrangement with a US-based company.

“We’ve actually started talking to them on the supply agreement first. We’ve been qualified as a supplier already. Now we’re just waiting for them to make up their minds whether they are going to set up in the US or here in the Philippines. Then as soon as they ready to move then we’ll build our factory,” he said.

Aside from this, he said they are also talking with potential Chinese, Japanese, Korean partners.

“Our service is essentially slicing wafers for use of cell pads by SunPower. Because of the reputation we have developed with SunPower, other companies have approached us – American, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans. And our dilemma right now, we’ve got so much demand that we need to scramble and get additional funding to expand because we don’t have the capacity to service all those customers. So what we just tried to do is to just classify it to the first tier and second tier and rationalize what we can allocate for the different companies,” he said.

But Lachica pointed out that there are still firming up plans on how to go about their international expansion program as they also see potential of expanding locally.

“The initial plan really was to go overseas, specifically to Malaysia. However, there was a recent development with Sunpower when they signed a joint venture with another company. And because of their need to settle other strategic directions, we kind of pulled back on our plan to move overseas. But having said that, another company has approached us and was considering moving to Malaysia. So what will probably happen at some point in time, we will set up a plant though we can’t say right now if it’s Malaysia specifically. But maybe even in the US, depending on where this other company goes, as they like what they saw with the SunPower model,” he said.

He said they are looking closely on the plan to set up a plant in China.

“We have plans to play also in the China market and compete head to head with the Chinese. The tally right now is that we will talk about it, and we will have to firm the roadmap to get there. But one thing is definite we will be moving out of the Philippines and offering our services outside,” he said.

He, however, said that expansion in the local front is also being explored.

FPSC, a joint venture between First Philippine Electric Corp. (First Philec) of the Lopez Group of Companies, with 80 percent and Sunpower Philippines Manufacturing (SPML) (San Jose, USA) with 20 percent, is the first and only large-scale silicon wafer slicing company in the Philippines.

From its 43 wiresaws platform in December 2009, FPSC expands its production facility up to 87 wiresaws by the end of the year, increasing its output to 22 million wafers a year.

By next month, the company will finish the P230 million Phase 2 of its expansion program which will increase its annual capacity to approximately 720 megawatts.

The expansion was supported by a $30- million loan sealed recently with the Philippine National Bank (PNB).