Arabs fat with US oil thanks to americans and their gas guzzling SUV
tankers are joining up with GE and attending the party. They will
invest billions to produce gigawatts of thinfilm solar tech. And FSLR
pays no dividends either, the CEO of FSLR is to busy selling off his
shares.
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Nestled underneath the $8 billion dollar co-
investment fund set up by Mubadala Investment Corp. and General
Electric Co. (GE) are some significant commitments from G.E. for
Mubadala's various Masdar clean technology initiatives.
As part of the agreement announced on Tuesday, G.E. will invest $50
million in the second Masdar Clean Tech Fund. The Fairfield, Conn.-
based entertainment, financial services, and industrial conglomerate
will also be developing what it called an "ecomagination" center to be
based in Masdar City, a zero-emission city, which Masdar is building
in Abu Dhabi.
(This story also appeared in Clean Technology Investor, a newsletter
and information service published by Dow Jones & Co.)
Masdar is managed by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, which is a
wholly- owned subsidiary of Mubadala. A spokesman for Mubadala
declined to comment on the target for the newest Masdar Cleantech
fund, but said that he expected the management group for the fund to
change from its existing structure. The previous $250 million fund was
managed jointly by Credit Suisse Group (CS), Consensus Business Group,
and Siemens AG (SI).
"We will be conducting research on renewable technology at our center
in Masdar City, specifically solar, and we will also be working with
Mubadala through the Clean Tech investment fund," G.E. spokesman
George Wilkerson wrote in an email.
Wilkerson wrote that the two companies will pursue research,
development, and investment specifically around solar and water
technologies, but that the fund would invest broadly in other clean
technologies as well.
An aspect of the agreement that has yet to be determined is whether
G.E. will be looking to supply Mubadala with any of its wind turbines
to sell in the Middle East, according to Wilkerson.
The year has been an exceptionally busy one for the Abu Dhabi-based
clean technology investment group Masdar. Most recently, Masdar Clean
Tech Fund announced the buyout of Texas City, Texas-based DuraTherm, a
recycler of petroleum and metal. Terms of that agreement were
undisclosed.
Earlier in the year Masdar agreed, through another investment arm, to
spend more than $2 billion for thin-film solar manufacturing
facilities, with the first 210 megawatts coming from technology and
services supplied by Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied Materials Inc.
(AMAT). Masdar has committed $600 million to the solar effort so far.
Ultimately, Masdar PV intends to build out 1 gigawatt of annual
capacity by 2014.
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