Tongwei to open new 30 GW cell fab in Sichuan

Chinese solar cell maker Tongwei has announced it is planning a 30 GW solar cell manufacturing facility near Chengdu, in Jintang County in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan.

The company said the factory will cost around RMB20 billion ($2.87 billion). Construction is slated to begin in March with production activity expected in 2021.

The solar manufacturer did not reveal details of what sort of cells would be produced at the facility.

Tongwei doubled its annual cell manufacturing capacity from 6 GW to 12 GW at the end of last year by expanding production at its sites in the eastern province of Hefei – where it also has 1 GW of solar module production lines – and at its existing Chengdu facility.

In June, Tongwei acquired a 30% stake in Longi Green Energy Technology’s 15 GW monocrystalline wafer factory in northwestern China’s Ningxia region by exchanging it for an equal share in its crystalline silicon factory in Inner Mongolia, according to the group’s chairman.

Tongwei was producing 80,000 tons of polysilicon at the end of December.