Etrion Completes Oria Solar Park in Italy
December 15, 2010, Geneva, Switzerland – Etrion Corporation (“Etrion” or the “Company”) (TSX: ETX) (OMX: ETX), an independent solar power producer, today announced the completion of the Oria solar park in Puglia, Italy.
Marco Northland, Etrion’s CEO, commented, “We are pleased to announce the completion of the Oria solar park built by SunPower. We expect to connect the remaining 2 MW of our SVE portfolio in Italy before the end of the year. We are happy to supply clean energy to the holiday lights in Puglia.”
The 1 MW Oria park is expected to produce over 1.7 million kilowatt hours (“kWh”) of clean electricity and more than 600,000 euros of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (“EBITDA”) per year.
The project benefits from the 2010 feed-in-tariff of 0.346 euros per kWh plus a market price of approximately 0.08 euros per kWh.
The Italian feed-in-tariff is a premium purchase price for solar electricity that is guaranteed by the Italian government for 20 years from the start of operations.
The 1 MW Oria park is a ground-based solar PV power plant using SunPower’s high-efficiency PV modules and single axis tracker technology with Siemens inverters.
Centrobanca, an Italian bank, provided 83% of the financing for the project with a 17.5-year, non-recourse loan.
About Etrion
Etrion Corporation develops, builds, owns and operates solar power plants in Italy. Etrion currently owns 41 megawatts (MW) of operational, ground-based solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants, has 17 MW of solar parks under construction and approximately 200 MW of solar development pipeline in Italy. Etrion is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm exchange (ticker symbol “ETX”).
For additional information, please visit the Company’s website at www.etrion.com or contact:
Robert Eriksson – Investor Relations
Telephone: +46 (0)701 11 2615
Forward-Looking Information:
This press release contains certain “forward-looking information”. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements relating to the Oria solar park, the production capacity thereof and the expected cash flow therefrom) constitute forward-looking information. This forward-looking information reflects the current expectations or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company as well as certain assumptions, including, without limitation, assumptions as to the price at which the Company will be able to sell electricity from the project and an assumption that the Company will be able to realize EBITDA margins for the project that are equivalent to the average margins for similar projects. Forward-looking information is subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the failure to obtain necessary regulatory and other approvals.
Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein.
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