Hanwha doubles Japanese sales presence

Share

All eyes continue to be focused on the Japanese photovoltaic market with Hanwha doubling its sales efforts in the country. Hanwha can supply Chinese and European-made modules into Japan, having expanded its operations through the acquisition of China’s Solarfun and Germany’s Q.Cells, in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

Hanwha SolarOne, which is part of the Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group, is also geographically well situated to work closely with Japanese suppliers.

Japan Daily Press reports that Hanwha signed a supply deal with Japanese trading firm Marunbeni last year, that it will supply 500 MW of modules to it through to 2016.

pv magazine has contacted Hanwha for more details as to its Japanese activities.

Figures from Japan show that domestic producers are also remaining strongly focused on their home market for the bulk of their activities. Q1 figures from the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association (JPEA) have shown that domestic shipments now consume 90% of production from Japanese photovoltaic manufacturers including Sharp, Kyocera, Sanyo and Mitsubishi Electric.

Thin film producer Solar Frontier is also firmly focused on its own backyard, and reports are the its 900 MW Kunitomi plant is now running at full utilization and it has restarted production at its older 60 MW plant. At the recent SNEC, a material supplier to Solar Frontier told pv magazine that currently its warehouses are close to empty despite its ramped production.

Intriguingly, and in trend that goes against the global patterns, thin film producers are making headway against their silicon rivals in the Japanese market. Q4 2012 market figures from JPEA show that thin film accounted for 21% of the market in the quarter. This is up from 4% in Q1 2010. Solar Frontier is largely leading this charge.

Japanese producers are also becoming increasingly involved in project development, with Solar Frontier managers reporting that the firm is leveraging its experience as being one of the country's most experienced energy suppliers. Solar Frontier is majority owned by Show Shell Sekiyu.

In terms of external suppliers SunPower is also enjoying success in the market, reporting in its Q1 financial results that it is experiencing a period of strong demand from the Japanese market.

Popular content

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Share

Related content

Elsewhere on pv magazine...

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.