Turkey’s Suoz Energy plans vertically integrated module production

Turkey-based solar manufacturer Suoz Energy Group has resumed PV panel production at its Mar Solar PV module factory in Dilovasi, in the western Turkish province of Kocaeli, in the Marmara region, while acquiring solar cell production equipment from Greek polysilicon manufacturer Silcio SA and the whole ingot and wafer manufacturing factory Piritium SA.

The new equipment and factory will enable Suoz Energy to produce 40 MW of ingots, 60 MW of wafers, and 80 MW of cells.

In a statement to pv magazine, the company’s founder and CEO, Berk Uçuran Çiller has confirmed the company’s plan to increase the capacity of its PV module manufacturing facility from 300 MW to 370 MW by the end of 2018, while integrating the new production equipment in order to convert the factory into a vertically integrated manufacturing facility. “With its new investments – Silcio and Piritium, SUOZ Energy Group is getting ready for becoming the first solar cell producer of Turkey with its cell production facility,” he also stated.

Among its 10-year projections, the company targets to make $400 million of additional investments in total, for solar energy, which it perceives “as the future of Turkey and the world”. The company is also targeting to sell 100 MW of its production annually to MENA market after 2019, while bringing Turkey to “top levels in value-added production”.

The module manufacturing factory in Dilovasi was built in 2016 with 200 MW annual production capacity. The capacity was then increased to 300 MW in the first quarter of 2018. Through the resumed production, Çiller hopes to achieve a revenue of $350 million in 2020. The factory currently manufactures both standard mono and polycrystalline modules along with monocrystalline PERC, double-glass and desert type panels.

Suoz Energy Group is currently a partner of big players such as Huawei, Gintech and Canadian Solar. It also provides EPC services through its partnerships for the construction of residential projects under its “Roof Battery Project”; C&I and large-scale PV projects, as well as ´ services to its customers in O&M.

Silcio and Piritium, both based in Patras, western Greece, were two units of local industrial conglomerate Copelouzos Group.

Turkey has currently two operational PV module factories in the free Trade zone of Turkey, China Sunergy’s 300 MW unit and a 600 MW cell and module factory commissioned by Chinese group HT-SAAE at the start of 2017, and two more under development by Korea-based Hanwha Q Cells and by domestic renewable energy project developer Eko Yenilenebilir Enerjiler A.S. (EkoRE), which planning to build a 1 GW module factory in Niğde, in Central Anatolia.