Tate posted last month about speculation that Suntech was working on a 500MW deal in China. Today, Suntech’s press office confirmed the deal for PV-tech.org. The article quotes an unnamed source from Suntech as saying that the deal is  “a non-binding strategic agreement similar to our agreement with the Qinghai government.”  Suntech reportedly signed the agreement on June 26th.

Under the agreement,Suntech will invest almost $1.2 billion in a 500MW solar project in Panzhihua, China. In the PV-tech.org article, Barclay’s analyst Visal Shah commented on the significance of the news:

“We believe STP remains well positioned to emerge as an industry leader given strong traction in both Chinese and U.S utility scale solar markets. More importantly, prospects within the Chinese solar market appear promising – if some of these projects get developed, China could potentially become the third largest market in 2012 (behind U.S and Germany).”

>>>