Trina Solar scores $300M loan for BIPV plant

Changzhou, China-based Trina Solar (NYSE:TSL) said it has secured a five-year loan of $304.2 million to build a new manufacturing facility.

The plant is expected to have 500 megawatts of annual production capacity for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), including crystal ingots, silicon chips, and solar cells, as well as photovoltaic subassembly. Trina also plans to build a BIPV research center.

The loan came from a domestic banking consortium led by the Agriculture Bank of China.

Trina—which manufactures ingots, wafers, cells, and photovoltaic modules—plans to reach production capacity of 400 MW of solar modules this year, up from 250 MW in mid-2008 (see Trina CEO expects 10x growth in China solar market).

The company has attributed the pickup in the market to the government's new solar incentives (see Trina Solar beats projections with 2Q09 profit). The central government established the "Golden Sun" program to subsidize half of the construction costs for on-grid solar power plants. The Ministry of Finance also plans to pay for up to 70 percent of off-grid installations and cover transmission costs where necessary (see A-Power enters the solar market with $50M acquisition).