Chinese PV Industry Brief: Microquanta builds 12 MW ground-mounted project with perovskite solar modules

Chinese perovskite cell maker Microquanta Semiconductor announced on Wednesday the start of construction on a 12 MW ground-mounted solar park in Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province. The facility will be China's first utility-scale solar project integrating perovskite solar modules, the company said in a statement. The plant is expected to be built with an investment of approximately RMB60 million ($9.48 million) and to occupy a surface of 166,500 square meters. Microquanta currently produces its modules through a 100 MW production line at its facility in Hangzhou Province. In 2019, its research team achieved a 14.24% conversion efficiency record for a large-area (200 x 800 cm²) perovskite solar module. In May, it claimed a world record 20.2% conversion efficiency on a 20 cm², “third generation” solar cell. The highest efficiency for a company's solar cell with an area of 19.3 cm² is reportedly 24.1%

Shanghai-listed Haiyuan Material (HYM) announced in a Q&A with investors on Wednesday that it expects to commission its 600 MW heterojunction solar cell factory in July. The company said it will be able to produce 24.5% efficient solar cells at a costs of RMB1 ($0.16) per watt. The company is owned by Gan Shengquan, which is also the owner of solar manufacturer LDK.

Polysilicon supplier Daqo is seeking to raise RMB11 billion ($1.74 billion) through a private placement. The company plans to issue more than 577.5 million shares to 35 investors. The net proceeds will be used for a plan aimed at further expanding the manufacturer's capacity by another 100,000 MTs. The new capacity will be located in Inner Mongolia to serve its customers which also have downstream productivities nearby. Those customers include Longi, JA Solar, Shangji, and Shuangliang, among others.

Renewables developer Beijing Enterprises Clean Energy yesterday announced it had abandoned plans to spin off its Tianjin Beiqing Electric Smart Energy Co Ltd solar and wind project development business for a listing in Shanghai via a complex asset swap with SEC Electric Machinery Co Ltd. The arrangement would have seen the Beijing Smart unit incorporated into Shanghai-listed SEC, which itself would have become an indirect, non-wholly owned subsidiary of BE Clean Energy. The latter company said the deal, announced in March last year, had lapsed because the appropriate stock market spin-off and listing approvals had not been achieved.

TBEA-owned polysilicon manufacturer and solar developer Xinte Energy on Wednesday announced it had signed a cooperation agreement with machine parts manufacturer Shanxi Huaxiang Group Co Ltd and the Hongtong County government to develop a RMB4 billion ($631 million), 1 GW solar project and a RMB300 million ($47.3 million) factory to produce PV mounting system brackets. The local authority will provide permitting support. The investment cost split between the two partner companies is yet to be determined.

State-owned energy company China Resources Power Holdings on Wednesday published generation figures which showed the 101 GWh its solar fields generated last month was 65% more than the 61.3 GWh of solar electricity it produced a year earlier. The company also generated 14.2 TWh of thermal power in January, up 3.4% year on year.