Allen Cao, General Manager of International Business at Arctech speaks to pv magazine about the solar supply chain challenges experienced in 2021 and how he believes the market will evolve this year. Overall, he says the industry could see a sharp rise in year-on-year PV installation capacity as prices start to come down. BIPV is also discussed as being a hot topic for the Chinese highly power-consuming industries.

According to PVInfolink, the top 10 solar manufacturers accounted for over 160GW of shipments or a global market share of 90% in 2021.

The National Energy Administration (NEA) reported this week that the newly installed PV capacity for the Chinese market reached around 53 GW last year. Of this capacity, around 29 GW comes from distributed generation projects. The country’s cumulative installed power reached 306 GW at the end of December.

Furthermore, Tongwei secured 104,800,000 wafers from Shuangliang and PV module manufacturer Yingli said its capacity has reached 8GW.

State-owned power generation company China Huadian Corporation has begun work on a 3.3GW solar site in Sichuan province. The project is one of nine renewable energy plants listed in China’s latest national five-year plan.

Sungrow is a market leader in the manufacture of PV inverters. The Chinese giant is also increasingly focused on the supply of energy storage systems and how these can be best coupled with inverters for improved performance. pv magazine caught up with Jack Gu, Senior Vice President of Sungrow to understand how the manufacturer has dealt with the recent solar supply chain challenges and what the company’s focus is on going forward.

Solar manufacturer JinkoSolar announced on Wednesday that its 8 GW TOPCon cell factory in the Anhui Province has started manufacturing activities. Polysilicon supplier and solar cell maker Tongwei announced on Thursday it expects to achieve a net profit of up to RMB 8.5 billion ($1.33 billion) with a YoY increase of around 136%.

The energy company will buy panels from JinkoSolar, Risen Energy, Canadian Solar, JA Solar, GCL Integration and Longi. Elsewhere, Xinyi Solar and Golden Solar have both announced new transactions to strengthen their business.

Growatt has been on an upward trajectory, recording an over 60% revenue increase in 2021, despite the many challenges posed in the solar industry. Lisa Zhang, global marketing director tells pv magazine how the Chinese PV inverter manufacturer overcame semiconductor chip shortages and rising costs amidst a global pandemic in addition to discussing key markets and new inverter products.

Solar manufacturer Zhonghuan Semiconductor has further decreased the prices of most of its PV wafers, while Beijing-based project developer Jingneng Clean Energy Co., Ltd (JNCEC) announced on Wednesday that its board has approved an investment plan for the construction of a 1GW renewable energy project in Inner Mongolia.