Italy’s FuturaSun opens 500 MW module fab in China

FuturaSun has announced it has opened a module factory in China’s Jiangsu province. The fab will consist of four production lines with a total annual production capacity of 500 MW.

The Italian company told pv magazine two of the production lines are already up and running with the other two set to come into operation ‘shortly’. The manufacturer said it plans to double capacity at the site to 1 GW.

The factory is located on a 20,000m² site in Taizhou industrial district, to the north of Shanghai. In its announcement, FuturaSun said its aim, in opening the factory, was “directly challenging the behemoths of the photovoltaic sector on Chinese soil”.

The facility will produce FuturaSun’s Silk module – a monocrystalline product featuring multi-busbar technology. Key to the plans, according to the company, is a new stringer, also named silk, which it says can greatly reduce the required footprint of a factory and its energy consumption. The stringer can process cells in any combination from five to 12 busbars and is adaptable for busbarless cell interconnection.

FuturaSun said it is the only Italian company supplying the domestic market in China. “In worldwide dynamics between Europe and China and in our sector, examples of successful investments for the production of modules are few and far between,” said CEO Alessandro Barin. “The new factory once more proves that FuturaSun is a European company which knows how to maintain its own business and grow by operating in a bi-cultural perspective”.

The new facility extends FuturaSun’s current manufacturing capacity, which includes a 150 MW factory in Maanshan, China and a partnership in a factory in Vietnam.

This article was amended on 01.07 to include information about the capacity of FuturaSun’s Maanshan factory and its partner facility in Vietnam.