Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation’s biggest solar wafer maker, said yesterday it planned to more than triple its wafer slicing capacity in China to 1 gigawatt in the fourth quarter after a new Chinese production line began operations recently.
The move matched a previous announcement by the wafer maker that it would boost its wafer capacity to 1 gigawatt by the end of this year to cope with voracious customer demand for its product.
Green Energy has said that increasing wafer slicing would help boost gross margin to some extent.
At the end of last year, Green Energy installed a wafer slicing capacity equivalent of 300 megawatts annually.
Green Energy began operating Ultra Energy (Weifang) Technology (宇駿濰坊), a new wafer slicing subsidiary, in China’s Shandong Province recently.
The subsidiary operates a plant with an annual capacity of 50MW.
“In the first quarter, Green Energy’s shipments were 3.8 times the amount shipped in the same period last year, reflecting growth in demand for solar energy,” company president Lin Hur-lon (林和龍) said in company statement.
Lin has said that adjustments in government policies and supply chain dynamics would not derail the uptrend in solar demand this year.
Green Energy remains unable to satisfy demand, he said.
To benefit from growing demand within the industry, Lin said that “Green Energy will accelerate its capacity expansion and advanced technology development.”
“This will improve product quality and help us reduce costs,” he said.
Earlier this month, the company’s board approved a budget of NT$1.46 billion (US$45.1 million) for solar wafer expansion and equipment purchase and an additional investment of US$37.22 million in Ultra Energy.
Share prices of Green Energy dropped near the 7 percent limit yesterday, at 6.93 percent, to close at NT$59.1 yesterday, underperforming the benchmark TAIEX, which was down 3.23 percent.
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