Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE: STP), the world's largest producer of solar panels, has engaged a second production shift at its new solar panel manufacturing facility in Goodyear, Arizona.

The state-of-the-art module manufacturing facility will now run for up to sixteen hours per day with 78 employees, up from eight hours and 40 employees when it commenced operations in October 2010. Suntech plans to ramp the facility to 50MW of annual production capacity by mid-2011, and targets to employ 150 people by the end of 2011.

"We've got a spirited, hard-working team in Goodyear that's eager to ramp up production," said Martin Guo, Suntech's Arizona Plant Manager. "Over the first three months, our new workers have really stepped-up and made a great deal of progress towards our cost and output targets. Now that we've found our stride, we're ready to take on another shift and increase output volumes to meet the great interest we're seeing for Suntech products made in Arizona."

The 117,000 square foot manufacturing facility features highly-automated manufacturing and product testing equipment and currently produces Suntech's 280W solar panels for commercial and utility-scale electricity generation. To meet growing demand throughout the Americas, Suntech plans to further expand its Arizona plant to exceed 100MW of annual production capacity within the next few years.

"Our Arizona manufacturing operations have solidified our market leadership position and put Suntech America on a solid foundation for long-term growth," said Steven Chan, President of Suntech America. "We're excited about increasing production output to meet the growing demands of our customers for Suntech's bankable solar panels."