Spire Corporation Expands Solar Capital Equipment Manufacturing Space
Thu Dec 6, 10:25 AM
ca.news.finance.yahoo.com
BEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Spire Corporation (Nasdaq: SPIR), a global solar company providing turnkey solar factories and capital equipment to manufacture photovoltaic modules worldwide, today announced it has expanded into an additional 53,000 square feet of solar equipment manufacturing space at its Bedford, Massachusetts headquarters facility. The company now maintains a total of approximately 144,000 square feet of manufacturing and headquarters space at this location.
“Spire’s solar capital equipment business is benefiting from the confluence of two powerful market forces,” said Roger G. Little, Spire’s chairman and chief executive officer. “Global demand for solar power is accelerating, and manufacturers of photovoltaic wafers, cells and modules anticipate greater availability of solar-grade silicon – the industry’s primary raw material – within the next year. They want to have new factory capacity in place to take advantage of these market forces, which is creating unprecedented new requirements for solar capital equipment. Spire is committed to helping meet this growing demand.”
Spire Corporation has reported three consecutive quarters of revenue growth. For the third quarter of 2007, the company achieved triple-digit increases year-over-year in sales of its turnkey solar factories and solar capital equipment.
“The increased manufacturing space and capacity is necessary to respond effectively to our customers’ demand for new equipment and facilities,” said Rodger W. LaFavre, chief operating officer of Spire Corporation. “We are fortunate to be able to expand within our present facility to minimize disruptions and to scale up efficiently. We have signed a long-term lease at a competitive rate to secure this space and we have room to expand further within the same facility.”
Along with increasing its manufacturing capacity, Spire has nearly doubled its staff to more than 205 in its Bedford facility, including contract assembly workers. “Our growth has also included major investments in human capital,” continued LaFavre. “We have increased the number of employees in our engineering, manufacturing and purchasing functions, established a second shift for manufacturing, and substantially added to our post-sale service staff and capabilities. We expect that the combination of new space and staff will give us an annual manufacturing capacity for equipment of more than 500 MW.”
In addition to its headquarters facility in Bedford, Massachusetts, Spire maintains a state-of-the-art semiconductor foundry at its Bandwidth Semiconductor subsidiary’s facility in Hudson, New Hampshire.
About Spire Corporation
Spire Corporation is a global solar company providing turnkey production lines and capital equipment to manufacture photovoltaic modules worldwide. The company’s Spire Solar subsidiary is the world’s leading supplier of turnkey photovoltaic wafer, cell and module manufacturing lines. Bandwidth Semiconductor develops and manufactures custom gallium arsenide solar cells and other related products for the commercial, biomedical and defense markets. The company’s Spire Biomedical subsidiary is a leader in hemodialysis catheters and implantable device processing services.
For corporate or product information, contact Spire Corporation, the turnkey solar factory company, at 781-275-6000, or visit www.spirecorp.com.
Certain matters described in this news release may be forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risk of dependence on market growth, competition and dependence on government agencies and other third parties for funding contract research and services, as well as other factors described in the Company's Form 10-KSB and other periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Spire Corporation
Rodger W. LaFavre, 781-275-6000
Chief Operating Officer
or
Sharon Merrill Associates, Inc.
Paul Sagan, 617-542-5300
Vice President
spir@investorrelations.com |
