Featured in Fruits of our labour – 03-2021

History repeats

“Unprecedented” was a term widely used in 2020, as the world grappled with the Covid-19 pandemic. The same word can be similarly applied to the plans and investments in production capacity announced by Chinese PV manufacturers right across the supply chain. But what shape are these expansions taking and what is driving this renewed confidence? Vincent Shaw reports from Shanghai.

By

Vincent Shaw

09 Mar 2021

Manufacturing equipment at a JinkoSolar facility.

In the third quarter, orders from China increased. | Image: JinkoSolar

Non-stop PV manufacturing capacity expansion has been a near-constant feature of the solar landscape over the past decade. Back to 2008 or even 2014, when market demand was trigged by early subsidy programs and an increasing awareness of the threat of global warming, capacity expansion was the first choice for many PV manufacturers – especially …

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