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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sanyo Solar Ships First Silicon Batch December 28, 2009 Sanyo Solar of Oregon LLC has shipped its first production batch of silicon wafers from its new Salem plant. "We are proud to have reached the milestone of our first official shipment" said Yasuyoshi Kawanishi, president of Sanyo Solar of Oregon. Last week, Sanyo had a ceremony to commemorate the first shipment. Wafers from Salem are going to Sanyo's Nishikinohama, Japan facility, where they will be made into finished solar cells. The 540,000 wafers in the first shipment, when printed and assembled into modules, will make the equivalent of about 7,500 solar panels. Sanyo's plant, located at 5475 Gaffin Road SE, started production in November and currently employs about 140 workers. The Salem plant produces silicon ingots and wafers, core materials to manufacture Sanyo's patented HIT (heterjunction with intrinsic thin-layer) solar cells and modules. Sanyo officials said the company's products have the world's highest solar-light-to-electric-energy conversion efficiency per installed square foot. The company uses a proprietary process at its facilities in Japan to turn the wafers into solar cells. A new Sanyo plant in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, which is near Monterrey, will assemble the solar cells into modules that will be sold in North America. Sanyo also has module assembly plants in Europe and Japan. Courtesy Michael Rose, Statesman Journal - www.statesmanjournal.com ###
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