Chinese PV Industry Brief: Hoshine expands PV glass output, Tongwei raises cell prices

Hoshine Silicon, China's largest silicon metal supplier, has announced plans to expand its PV glass manufacturing business. A new document from the provincial office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that the company plans to build a new factory in an industrial park in the Xinjiang region. The facility will have eight production lines with capacities of 1,200 metric tons (MT) per day each. Production is scheduled to begin in June 2023, with a total solar glass capacity of 3,000,000 MT per year.

Tongwei has announced new solar cell prices, with increases for all of its monocrystalline PV products. The polysilicon supplier and solar cell maker priced its PERC 182 mm cells at CNY 1.17 ($0.18) per watt, up 1.7%, and its PERC 166 mm cells at CNY 1.13 per watt, up 1.8%. It also increased the price of its PERC 210 mm cells by 0.9% to CNY 1.17 per watt. The company's cell prices have been trending upward since the beginning of 2021, and are now 15% higher from the levels recorded on June 30, 2021.

JA Solar has recorded a turnover of CNY 41.3 billion for fiscal 2021, up 60% from a year earlier. It posted a net profit of CNY 2.04 billion, up 35% from 2020. The PV module manufacturer attributed the strong growth to module shipment increases and rising panel prices. It said it also optimized supply chain management, which contributed to its strong performance.

Maxwell Technology has secured an order for eight heterojunction production lines with a total capacity of 4.8 GW from Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd., the parent company of Norway-based solar panel manufacturer REC.

Solargiga said its Qujing Yangguang solar ingot and wafer production unit will raise an estimated CNY 249 million by issuing convertible bonds equaling 6.95% of the existing business. The bonds will be purchased by Solargiga directors Tan Xin and Tan Wenhua for CNY 26.30 per share, the company said on Thursday. Some of the funds will be used to finance solar ingot and wafer production equipment, it said.

Shanghai Electric has recorded a CNY 423 million hit to its 2021 earnings due to its 20% stake in an abandoned thin-film PV module manufacturing project. The state-run energy company said it contributed CNY 250 million to a planned copper, indium, gallium, selenide (CIGS) solar module plant that was halted “due to changes in [the] market and other factors.” The loss comes at a tough time for the utility, which has also made a CNY 1.04 billion provision for losses this year from the Dubai Solar Thermal Photovoltaic Project. 

China Power International Development’s annual report for 2021, published this week, shows that the company’s solar plants generated a profit of CNY 574 million last year, up from CNY 541 million in 2020. Its coal-fired power plants posted a loss of CNY 2.08 billion, from a CNY 523 million profit a year earlier. The company said 7.09 TWh of the 98.8 TWh of electricity it generated in 2021 was produced by its PV projects. Coal-fired power accounted for 62.9 TWh of the total. China Power’s generation fleet includes 8.34 GW of solar capacity, as well as 30 GW of coal plants.