China to supply 1.1 million solar panels to Nevada plant

Trina Solar announced today it will supply 1.1 million solar panels for a power plant to be built in the Nevada desert.

Power producer Sempra Energy will develop the Copper Mountain plant. The 250-megawatt plant will be one of the world's largest solar power stations, and the largest in the U.S. to use Chinese-made photovoltaic panels.

While Chinese companies serve large swaths of the residential market in the U.S., large plants and utilities have generally gone for American companies like First Solar and SunPower until recently.

In November, Chinese solar manufacturer Yingli was contracted to supply panels for a 200 MW plant under construction in the desert outside San Diego, California.

And major players like Trina and Yingli may actually benefit from mounting concerns about the quality of Chinese-made solar panels as other manufacturers struggle to cut costs and pay debts.

"Quality issues are helping weed out the weak," said Mark Mendenhall, president of Trina’s U.S. operations.

"We get audited all the time and we welcome customers to come visit our factories."

Meanwhile Yingli opened a solar panel test lab in California, and they say that only 15 defective photovoltaic modules have been returned out of the 2.8 million it sold in the US since 2009.