Taiwanese solar maker eyes Chinese market

Green Energy Technology (TPE:3519), a Taiwanese producer of polycrystalline silicon solar wafers, announced it would invest $5.05 million for a 40-percent stake in a joint venture to supply solar cells to Chinese manufacturers.

Construction on the facility for the new venture, which as yet does not have an English corporate name, began earlier this month. Green Energy said the plant is expected to be operational by the second half of 2009 and is projected to have an annual production capacity of 60 megawatt-peak.

Green Energy is also planning to expand its production capacity in Taiwan. Additional lines to slice polycrystalline silicon ingots into wafers are expected to eventually supply 80 percent of the company’s total domestic capacity and are projected to be completed in the third quarter of 2009.

In early September Green Energy announced it had been contracted to supply 25 MWp of thin-film solar modules to solar system makers in Spain and German starting in 2009. The three deals are worth $59 million annually.

The company has been in test production for its thin-film solar modules and is expected to ramp volume production in December, reaching a projected capacity of 30 MWp by February. The facility is expected to reach 50 MWp capacity by the end of 2009.

Data released last month by the Taiwan External Trade Development showed that Green Energy and five other Taiwanese solar cell makers sold a combined $1.1 billion in solar cells during the first half of the year, a 70 percent increase over sales during the same period in 2007 (see Taiwan solar makers grow sales 70 percent).

Taiwan’s Bureau of Energy has announced plans to work with China to promote the development of Taiwan’s solar industry.