Vertically integrated solar cell and module manufacturer from China, JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. has entered into a long-term agreement with Germany's Wacker Chemie to supply it more than 70,000 tons of polysilicon from the latter's German and US located production sites.
Under the terms of the agreement, the German chemical producer will supply JinkoSolar's principal operating subsidiary Jinko Solar Co., Ltd. with the requisite amount of polysilicon from September 2021 to December 2026, basing purchase price on the market price.
"By locking in over 70,000 tons of polysilicon from Wacker, we will ensure the reliability of the manufacturing of our products from a high-quality raw material source, as well as the stable supply of our high efficiency products to our global clients," explained Jinko Solar Co., Ltd. CEO Kangping Chen.
What one can read between the lines here is that Chinese manufacturers like JinkoSolar are working out ways to avoid losing the US as a major market of their modules for using China made polysilicon as demand for solar increases. The US government has barred all Chinese modules with Xinjiang originated polysilicon, which is of course quite hard to prove, so manufacturers increasingly would want to play it safe from the word go (see US Government Ban On Xinjiang Produced Solar Products).
The Chinese company has also recently announced a new wafer production fab in Vietnam with an annual capacity of 7 GW (see JinkoSolar Building 7 GW Wafer Plant In Vietnam).
For Wacker Chemie, this a good time to be in the polysilicon business as the current tight supply in the global supply chain helped it report high volumes (see Polysilicon Prices Push Up Wacker Chemie's Q2/2021 EBITDA).