XsunX announces U.S. manufacturing facility

Shares of thin film photovoltaics company XsunX (BULLETIN BOARD: XSNX) rocketed up 17% this morning on news that it's planning to build a multi-megawatt production facility in the United States.

The announcement, made today, marks a change in XsunX's business strategy.

"Growing national and international market opportunities for building integrated photovoltaics clearly support this decision to expand the XsunX business model from a purely licensing and equipment sales model into one of manufacturing the solar devices ourselves here in the U.S.," said Tom Djokovich, CEO.

"As we work with manufacturing licensees globally on assessing the size of the markets and the return on investment of our manufacturing systems, it became obvious that it was a business opportunity we could not ignore."

With this new plant, XsunX will focus on providing the U.S. market with thin film solar solutions and products that are easy to incorporate into buildings. The demand for these types of products continues to outpace the ability of current solar cell manufacturers to deliver them.

"Global warming and global energy needs have converged to create an enormous and growing demand for new solar energy solutions," said Kurt Laetz, vice president of sales and marketing. "We anticipate we will soon have manufacturing partners in place internationally, and have decided that the U.S. market could best be served by XsunX itself."

The company is planning a manufacturing line around a 5 megawatt modular design, which is to allow it to scale from 5 to 25 to 50 megawatts of production by adding new 5 megawatt lines.

A number of states that have mandated certain minimum renewable energy production standards and the type of knowledge based jobs that our facility could bring to a region may prove very attractive to regional and state policy makers.

XsunX says it plans to build its first facility where it finds the best access to government support and a qualified work force. It is apparently paying special attention to California, Massachusetts and Colorado where current facilities are located.

Based in Aliso Viejo, California, XsunX is developing and commercializing thin film photovoltaic (TFPV) solar cell technologies and manufacturing processes focused on lowering the cost per watt of solar power, and making solar cell technology easier to use in a wide variety of applications.

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