SunPower Acquires 1.5 Gigawatt U.S. Solar Power Plant Pipeline

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 27, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- SunPower (Nasdaq: SPWR) announced today that it has acquired 1.5 gigawatts of U.S. solar power plant development assets from Australia-based Infigen Energy. With the acquisition, SunPower has assumed ownership of projects in varying stages of development across 11 states.

Included in the development portfolio are three projects totaling 55 megawatts (AC) with power purchase agreements with Southern California Edison. All three are located in Kern County, Calif.  SunPower expects to start construction on these projects later this year with commercial operation anticipated in 2016.

"The magnitude of this acquisition speaks to SunPower's financial strength as well as our expertise and leadership in global power plant development," said Tom Werner, SunPower CEO and president. "It provides an expanded and geographically diverse portfolio of solar projects in the U.S. that may all be generating cost-effective, emission-free power by the end of this decade."

"SunPower brings significant experience and proven technology to ultimately transform these development assets into high-performing solar power plant projects, designed to reliably deliver value over the long term," said David Smith, CEO of Infigen Energy US. "Infigen is pleased to have completed this transaction with SunPower." 

SunPower expects to offer some of the acquired projects for sale to 8point3 Energy Partners LP (Nasdaq: CAFD), the YieldCo joint venture formed by SunPower and First Solar. 

"We expect this acquisition to deliver additional value to our shareholders through long-term power purchase agreements with leading energy buyers, while providing further growth opportunities for SunPower," continued Werner.

About SunPower Corp.
SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR) designs, manufactures and delivers the highest efficiency, highest reliability solar panels and systems available today. Residential, business, government and utility customers rely on SunPower's 30 years of experience and guaranteed performance to provide maximum return on investment throughout the life of the solar system. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., SunPower has offices in North and South America, Europe, Australia, Africa and Asia. For more information, visit www.sunpower.com.

SunPower is a registered trademark of SunPower Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding our plans and objectives for existing and future project development, construction, and power purchase arrangements related to such projects; project development and construction timelines; project performance, reliability and value proposition expectations; and project disposition plans. These forward-looking statements are based on our current assumptions, expectations and beliefs and involve substantial risks and uncertainties that may cause results, performance or achievement to materially differ from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: (1) competition in the industry and downward pressure on average selling prices; (2) our liquidity, substantial indebtedness, and our ability to obtain additional financing for our projects and our customers; (3) our ability to meet our cost reduction targets; (4) regulatory changes and the availability of economic incentives promoting use of solar energy; (5) challenges inherent in constructing and maintaining certain of our large projects; (6) the success of our ongoing research and development efforts and commercialization of new products and services; (7) fluctuations in our operating results; (8) manufacturing difficulties that could arise; and (9) challenges managing our joint ventures. A detailed discussion of these factors and other risks that affect our business is included in filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from time to time, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, particularly under the heading "Risk Factors." Copies of these filings are available online from the SEC or on the SEC Filings section of our Investor Relations website at investors.sunpowercorp.com. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information currently available to us, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events.

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SOURCE SunPower Corp.

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