Showa Shell to spend $1.1B for third solar cell factory

Japanese oil refiner Showa Shell Sekiyu (TYO:5002) said its subsidiary Showa Shell Solar is planning to spent ¥100 billion ($1.1 billion) to build its third thin-film copper, indium and selenium (CIS) photovoltaic plant.

The facility, capable of producing 900 megawatts a year, is expected to help Japan’s fifth-largest oil company boost its solar cell business to an output capacity of 1 gigawatt annually as it pursues new revenue opportunities from alternative energy.

The company said yesterday that the new plant is slated for completion in July 2011. The facility is expected to be located in southern Japan’s Miyazaki prefecture, at a site it is acquiring from Hitachi that was previously used as a plasma display factory.

Showa Shell Solar’s other two solar plants are also located in the southern Japan prefecture. The company is known for making solar cells that use CIS, which is considered to be less expensive than polysilicon (see China solar industry faces rising silicon costs).

Showa Shell Sekiyu is an affiliate of Saudi Arabian Oil, or Saudi Aramco, as well as The Hague, Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell, which is one of the world's largest distributors of first-generation biofuels.

Earlier this year, Shell dropped plans to pursue wind and solar projects, saying it wanted to concentrate on next-generation biofuels (see Shell to grow algae for biofuel, Shell and Codexis in biofuels agreement and NASA’s got a new way to get biofuel from algae).

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