America Solar-Power Developer SunEdison Moves To California From Maryland

It is said that SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)--MEMC Electronic Materials Inc.'s (WFR) solar-power development unit SunEdison moved its headquarters to the San Francisco area from Maryland to be closer to the one of the world's fastest-growing solar markets, the company said Monday.

"We do think that California is the epicenter for solar," SunEdison President Carlos Domenech said in an interview.

California is on track to add about 6,000 megawatts of solar power over the next few years and SunEdison aims to snag a good-size piece of that, Domenech said.

SunEdison, which builds, owns and operates solar-power plants and rooftop generators using solar panels, does about half its business in the U.S. and Canada, and the rest in Europe and other regions, Domenech said. The group uses panels made by its parent company and also buys panels from other manufacturers for its projects.

SunEdison moved its headquarters from Beltsville, Md., to Belmont, Calif., a suburb of San Francisco. MEMC, which makes silicon wafers for the semiconductor and solar industries, is headquartered in St. Peters, Mo.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, who attended the opening of SunEdison's new headquarters, praised the company's move.

"California is open for business, we're the innovative state and we're going to invest in solar and make California not only the national leader, which it already is, we're going to make it the world leader, and we're going to do that with a company like this," Brown said.

In September, SunEdison bought San Francisco-based solar-farm developer Fotowatio Renewable Ventures Inc. for $112 million, plus repayment of $19 million of debt. That purchase added 1,400 megawatts of solar farms to SunEdison's project pipeline.

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