Life’s good for LG, the international electronics company that has had early success in the solar energy industry. The company kicked off its entry to the industry in late 2009 with the completion of a solar-panel manufacturing plant in Gumi, South Korea, just southeast of Seoul.

Just weeks before beginning production of solar panels at the Gumi plant, which is expected to produce 120 megawatts’ worth of panels annually, company officials arrived two weeks ago at Intersolar Europe, using the expo to announce that the Gumi plant’s first year of output is already spoken for — and sold. The company didn’t stop there, hinting that buyers were also interested in its 2011 production.

LG’s activities at Intersolar may be viewed as a merely prelude for what’s to come, however.

According to a recent announcement, LG is launching a five-year plan under which it will invest $820 million to expand the Gumi plant. The company’s aim is to become a leading solar -panel manufacturer, says Kwan-Shik Cho, Vice President of LG’s solar business. LG predicts that the expansion will push the plant’s production over 1 gigawatt (GW) and rack up another $2.4 billion in sales by 2015.

The $820 million investment is separate from the $17.9 billion LG pledged to invest back in April in order to cut its manufacturing emissions by 40 percent and adopt environmentally-friendly practices, both over the next decade.