Chinese PV Industry Brief: JA Solar plans new 5 GW module factory, GCL-poly secures another big polysilicon order

Solar module maker JA Solar has signed an agreement with the government of Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, for the construction of a 5 GW solar module factory and the deployment of a 2 GW hybrid wind-solar-storage facility. The entire project will require a total investment of RMB10 billion ($1.55 billion) and is scheduled for completion within five years.

Polysilicon manufacturer GCL-Poly yesterday announced the signing of a five-year deal to sell poly materials and its low-energy-intensity granular product to solar equipment supplier Wuxi Shangji Automation. Wuxi Shangji will buy at least 97,500 metric tons from January 1 to the end of 2026 with shipments and prices to be set monthly. According to current prices supplied by Taiwanese analyst PV InfoLink, the deal will be worth RMB26.2 billion (US$4.1 billion). GCL yesterday also contradicted a statement reported last month that was made by the company appointed to investigate its internal policies as one of the conditions to resume trading of its stock on the Hong Kong exchange. Crowe (HK) Risk Advisory Ltd had said it had found no evidence of due diligence being carried out before GCL pledged 865 million shares in its GCL New Energy solar project development business as part of a deal to secure a US$60 million loan from Bentley Rothschild Capital 5 Ltd. Only US$2.2 million of the cash arrived and the lender subsequently claimed the stock after stating the terms of the agreement had been breached, leaving GCL-Poly only a 49.24% stake in the project business. However, GCL-Poly said yesterday it had originally been asked to pledge shares tied to the full US$60 million of the proposed loan but had agreed to a commitment related to just the initial $16 million payment “to reduce its security exposure, as the company had not had any prior business dealings with the lender.” GCL added it had carried out desktop searches on the lender and broker concerned and had also checked the list of connected parties which is updated monthly by GCL’s secretarial department.

Heterojunction (HJT) solar new entrant Golden Solar on Tuesday announced it and “strategic partner” Gold Stone Energy Co Ltd had been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission as two of the three project partners to develop a national engineering research center for high efficiency solar cell equipment and technology. Gold Stone provides HJT production line equipment.

China's National Energy Administration (NEA) released statistics of residential PV installations in October that were registered as subsidized projects. The total installed and registered projects in mainland China achieved 1.93 GW, bringing the yearly cumulative installation capacity to 13.61 GW.

China's largest energy company, the State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), will attempt to monetize the RMB1.18 billion (US$185 million) owed in renewable energy subsidies to the China Power International business it controls by taking ownership of the rights to the payments, which will be packaged into a trust as an underlying asset and used to issue asset-backed notes on the Chinese inter-bank bond market. China Power announced the arrangement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange yesterday.

Integrated PV company JA Solar announced on Wednesday plans to invest in new facility that will include 5 GW of module capacity and 2 GW of renewable energy. JA Solar signed the investment agreement for the comprehensive renewable energy facility with the local government of Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province. The new facility will include 5 GW of state-of-the-art PV module capacity and 2 GW of renewable energy capacity that will include wind, solar PV power and power storage. The total investment is valued at around RMB10 billion (US$1.55 billion) over a five-year period.