Chinese PV Industry Brief: 50 GW plan for rooftop, BIPV

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction (MOHURD) released a development plan aimed at deploying 50 GW of rooftop and building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) by the end of 2025. The ministry said it will promote a series of new policies and standards for building designing and construction.

Wafer manufacturer Shangji Automation has secured a long-term wafer supply agreement from cell maker Aiko Solar. Under the terms of the agreement, Aiko will buy a total of 552 million wafers from Shangji during the 2022-2024 period. Based on current wafer prices, the contract value is estimated at around RMB3.6 billion ($568.3 million). The price will be negotiated on a monthly basis.

China's second-largest wafer maker, Zhonghuan Semiconductor, reported record revenue of RMB41 billion for fiscal year 2021 and with a YoY increase of 115%. Net profit grew 305% year-on-year to RMB3.86 billion. According to Zhonghuan, the company experienced great challenges due to the cost rise of upstream material, namely polysilicon, in 2021. However, the company maintained the business chain with both customers and suppliers with long-term contracts.

Footwear and materials science company Golden Solar has said just two months of income from its nascent mono cast wafer and heterojunction cell and module business may have pushed its operations into a profit for shareholders last year of around HK$15 million (US$1.92 million). The business yesterday reported unaudited sales of HK$377 million (US$48.2 million), up 180% from HK$125 million (US$16 million) in 2020, for expected gross profits of HK$106 million (US$13.6 million), up from HK$20.2 million (US$2.58 million). The new solar entrant said its PV business brought income chiefly in November and December, despite electricity rationing by the authorities. In an update to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Golden Solar said: “The group expects that the new business will become the main business of the group and would become the driving force of higher profit growth for the near future.” The manufacturer also said it benefited from less Covid-related business disruption in China as footwear customers turned to its original equipment manufacturing business from their usual Southeast Asian and Indian suppliers.

Module manufacturer Solargiga has said it expects profits attributable to shareholders of RMB157-207 million (US$24.8-32.8 million) from last year. The company had posted a loss of RMB216 million (US$34.2 million) in 2020 as it exited the cell manufacturing segment and yesterday said the turnaround was down to increased production capacity in its remaining, non-cell solar production operations plus related economies of scale and rising selling prices for silicon wafers in particular.

GCL-Poly appears to have backtracked on its plan to rename the business GCL Technology. The polysilicon maker and solar project developer on Wednesday told the Hong Kong Stock Exchange the extraordinary general meeting planned in Hong Kong on Thursday, to approve the company name change, would now be held in GCL premises in China on April 1, due to Covid restrictions in the special administrative region. GCL made no mention of the proposed name change it had suggested to shareholders last month and instead said the rearranged EGM in Jiangsu would consider a new share options scheme for staff. That news came a day after GCL had announced an offer to buy back up to US$53.4 million worth of an outstanding US$497 million of three-year, 10% senior notes issued by the company in June. An announcement to the Singapore Stock Exchange outlined the offer, which would pay investors $0.975 plus accrued interest for each dollar’s worth of the senior notes held, with the offer due to close on Tuesday.

Fellow poly manufacturer Daqo New Energy on Wednesday told the Shanghai Stock Exchange it expects its Xinjiang Daqo subsidiary will sell 37,000-38,000 tons of polysilicon in the first three months of this year, up 72-77% on the 21,471 tons it shifted in January-to-March last year.