First Solar Inc. (Tempe, Arizona, US) became the largest engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor in the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry in 2012, according to new rankings by IMS Research, now part of IHS Inc. (Longwood, Colorado, US).

First Solar installed over 500 MW of PV projects in 2012, a 50% increase over 2011. IHS also reports that SunEdison LLC (Beltsville, Maryland, US) and SunPower (San Jose, California, US) have also made the top 15 EPCs, with 390 MW and 190 MW installed respectively.