Investors in thin-film solar companies already had cause for concern as plunging polysilicon prices made traditional solar panels more competitive.
Now, investors in one thin-film solar company in particular—Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar—might have a fresh worry: The federal government.
Following up on a citizen’s complaint, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management is investigating First Solar’s acquisition this spring of smaller rival OptiSolar and its pipeline of solar-energy projects. At issue is First Solar’s purchase of OptiSolar’s applications to use about 130,000 acres of federal land to build new solar-power facilities.
First Solar told the L.A. Times yesterday that the OptiSolar deal was about building a pipeline of new solar projects: “The applications were an important part of it for us,” a spokeswoman said. OptiSolar’s manufacturing division was not included in the $400 million acquisition, completed in April.
At issue is whether the rush to build new sources of clean energy is creating a land grab. Or as Cassandra Sweet of Dow Jones Newswires puts it, “The concern is that such applications [for federal land] could become unofficial currency amid a land rush spurred by increasingly aggressive renewable energy requirements in California and other western states, and as Congress considers a national renewable energy mandate.”
