United Renewable Energy Co (URE, 聯合再生), one of the nation’s biggest solar module manufacturers, yesterday said it is developing next-generation solar modules with a higher conversion rate and tapping into the energy storage market in its latest efforts to turn around the grim solar sector.
The Hsinchu-based solar company said it is developing perovskite solar modules with a conversion rate of 26 percent, which is 3 percent or 4 percent higher than the silicon-based solar modules it makes using TOPCon technology.
URE’s aim is to boost the conversion rate to more than 30 percent over the next three to four years, company chairman Sam Hong (洪傳獻) told reporters yesterday.
Photo on courtesy of United Renewable Energy Co
Solar modules with higher conversation rates are more suitable for population-dense areas with limited land to deploy ground-mounted solar farms, he said.
The company plans to start shipping the first batch of perovskite solar modules by the end of next year.
“We have new teams focused on exploring new business [for growth] in addition to our existing solar module businesses,” Hong said, adding that URE is making inroads into the energy storage market.
The company plans to offer behind-the-meter (BTM) energy storage and energy management solutions for enterprises to address the widening gap of electricity rates between peak and off-peak hours.
Based on URE’s calculations, the rate for industrial users during peak hours is about NT$8 per unit, which is four times higher than the NT$2 per unit charged by Taiwan Power Co (台電) during off-peak hours.
A BTM battery storage provides cost-effective power that can be used on site without passing through a meter. URE plans to build its first BTM storage in Tainan with an investment of NT$75 million (US$2.36 million). The facility, with 4-megawatt capacity, would start operations by the second quarter of next year, the company said.
The new business strategies come as URE and its local peers have been struggling to make a profit in the past one-and-half years due to sluggish market demand and dipping solar prices at home and in overseas markets.
The company said solar market prospects remain grim this year. Demand is picking up, but the recovery has fallen short of its expectations mainly due to bureaucratic inertia at home. URE originally said demand would bounce back rapidly after the presidential election earlier this year because of reduced uncertainty about the government’s energy policy.
“We are expecting an improvement in the fourth quarter, which is usually a peak season for the industry. However, it is premature to say how much improvement we are going to make,” URE chief financial officer Pan Laylay (潘蕾蕾) said.
Revenue and factory utilization would improve this quarter compared with last quarter, Pan said, adding that factory utilization fell to less than 50 percent in the first half of this year.
The company posted NT$1.11 billion in losses for the first half of this year, up from a loss of NT$363 million during the same period last year.
Revenue plummeted 63 percent year-on-year to NT$2.86 billion during the first two quarters, compared with NT$7.64 billion a year earlier.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS