Capitalize on this large opportunity by virtue
"Our third-quarter results reflect another strong quarter of execution, driven by significant demand for both distributed generation and power plant systems," said Tom Werner, SunPower president and CEO. "Solar power is increasingly competitive with traditional energy sources in a number of markets, and we are well positioned to capitalize on this large opportunity by virtue of our industry-leading technology, competitive cost structure, substantial project pipeline, and ongoing manufacturing capacity expansion.
"Regionally, North America was once again the biggest contributor. Construction of the 579-megawatt (MW) ac Solar Star Projects for MidAmerican Solar is on plan with 309-MW now connected to the grid. Construction of our 135-MW Quinto project is proceeding and we recently closed financing for the project, consistent with our holdco strategy. We also continue to see strong demand in the commercial sector as we booked more than 20-MW of power purchase agreements (PPA); including a 16-MW ground mounted solar project for the University of California at Davis. When complete, our UC Davis system will be the largest solar power plant on any U.S. university or college campus. These commercial system PPAs are also structured in a way that is consistent with our holdco strategy. We also added both new and repeat cash customers to our commercial backlog including a 10-MW expansion agreement with Verizon. In the residential channel, third quarter bookings were up more than 50 percent sequentially as customers continued to choose SunPower for their solutions to take advantage of our quality, performance and flexible financing options.
"In EMEA, we saw stable pricing against the backdrop of an evolving distributed generation market environment and continue to adapt our go-to-market plans accordingly. In the power plant channel, we were awarded a four project, 41-MW supply agreement for Compagnie du Vent, a subsidiary of French utility GDF SUEZ in connection with the recent French national tender program. With this supply agreement and our booked power plant projects, including the construction start of our 85-MW project in South Africa this quarter, we are confident in achieving our goals for this region," continued Werner.