SPI Solar, the California-based firm now owns 100% of Solar Green Technologies, an engineering, construction and procurement (EPC) firm, and hopes that the deal will offer it an opportunity to expand into European markets.

"The SGT acquisition is a perfect complement to our global growth strategy," said Stephen Kircher, chief executive for SPI Solar. "In addition to providing a base for our business development and EPC activities as we expand our European efforts, SGT's revenue and profitability goals align seamlessly with SPI's. More importantly, this acquisition will enable SPI to accelerate our ramp toward our three-year goal of potentially developing approximately 500 MW in solar projects per year."

Solar Green Technologies has a booked pipeline of 20MW of rooftop solar installations, serving as EPC provider for approximately 33 distributed generation systems as part of the Century programme, as well as Epicuro Fund's 25MW project pipeline for another 30-40 systems.

"We are very happy to be part of the SPI Solar team," said Angelo Prete, managing director of Solar Green Technology. "The combination of our companies provides SPI Solar with an even stronger European presence. From an organisational perspective, we have many complementary resources that we can leverage to extend SPI's reach throughout Europe and beyond."

Solar Green Technologies was founded in 2008, and LDK purchased a 70% interest in the company in 2009. From 2008 to 2011, the company installed approximately 22 MW, which includes “one of the largest rooftop systems in Italy”, SPI said.

Solar Green Technologies will continue to operate in Italy and Europe as a wholly owned subsidiary of SPI.