Evergreen Solar Signs Major Green Contract (ESLR)

Evergreen Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: ESLR) has rewarded its investors with the announcement that it has signed two new long-term sales contracts valued at approximately $600 million.  The agreements are with groSolar in the U.S. and with Wagner & Co Solartechnik GmbH in Germany.

These contracts extend through 2012 and this now brings Evergreen’s total contractual backlog to approximately $1.7 billion.  For a comparison on how large this is and what it adds, analysts from First Call are only looking for an entire 2008 revenue base of $118.75 million.

The solar panels for these two contracts and the two contracts previously announced in May will be manufactured at the company’s new Devens, Massachusetts facility, which is set to begin production in July.  These combined four deals now account for some 65% of the company’s expected 160MW of annual production capacity at Devens through 2013.

Evergreen Solar also has six other customer contracts with a current total backlog of approximately $850 million, which will primarily be supplied by EverQ, its German-based joint venture.

Evergreen closed up marginally at $10.24 today and shares are up over 10% at $11.35 in after-hours trading after the news.  Its market cap is $1.24 Billion before tonight’s after-hours gains. This pop and this interest should make this one of the more active alternative energy stocks Thursday.

This is one we we have reviewed in our weekly "10 Stocks Under $10" newsletter, where we have 3 other active picks on the list in alternative energy, green energy, or "less dirty" energy.

Jon C. Ogg
June 18, 2008