SolarWorld's ’09 sales beat expectations

SolarWorld AG on Tuesday said its 2009 sales surpassed expectations, reaching nearly $1.5 billion.

The Germany solar panel manufacturer, which has a nearly 700,000-square-foot plant in Hillsboro, said it benefited from a worldwide increase in demand for “high quality and brand name technology.”

SolarWorld had forecast year-end sales of $1.4 billion. A year earlier it reported sales of $1.3 billion.

SolarWorld said its annual revenue, as measured in euros, has increased by a factor of 185 in the 10 years since its initial public offering in 1999, when it had sales of 5.4 million euros, or $7.8 million.

SolarWorld won’t release its full-year results until March 25.

In October it unveiled a 210,000-square-foot addition to its Hillsboro plant in an expansion that made it the only monocrystalline solar manufacturing plant in the United States to produce every phase of solar panel manufacturing.

Prior to the addition, the plant focused only on turning polysilicon into solar wafers and power-generating cells. The new space expanded the plant’s capabilities to include module manufacturing.