Solargiga issues profit warning

Chinese solar manufacturer Solargiga today issued a profit warning ahead of the publication of its unaudited first-half results.

Announcing the figures would be released at a board meeting on Friday, August 30, the ingot, wafer, cell and module maker warned investors to brace themselves for more extensive losses than the RMB104 million ($14.8 million) shed at the same point last year.

Whilst the Hong Kong-based company highlighted the delayed announcement of Beijing’s new solar policy this year as a mitigating circumstance, it was also forced to acknowledge the new ingot and wafer production lines opened last year were still not operating at full capacity.

In an announcement to the Hong Kong stock exchange today, Solargiga said the delay in confirming China’s policy for subsidized PV projects had pushed back an expected recovery in the world’s biggest solar marketplace until the second half of the year, negatively affecting the first-half figures.

Production problems

The company also admitted its high efficiency, monocrystalline wafer and ingot production facilities at Qujing in China’s Yunnan province were still not operating at their full 600 MW capacity.

Solargiga was caught in the headlights last year when the Chinese authorities announced an intent to rein in public solar subsidies, with the manufacturer having just spent big on doubling its solar module production capacity to 2.2 GW.

August 30 is set to be a big day for the sector, with heavily indebted solar project developer Panda Green set to report its first-half results and similarly burdened polysilicon manufacturer GCL-Poly due to update investors on its latest fundraising exercise.