Trina Solar’s H1 2024 business was impacted by the drop in module prices and the imbalance in demand and supply
Nevertheless, its module shipments of 34 GW represented a year-over-year increase of 25.9%
It targets to exit the year with an annual production capacity of 55 GW, 105 GW, and 120 GW for silicon wafers, cells and modules, respectively
Leading vertically integrated solar PV manufacturer headquartered in China Trina Solar exited H1 2024 with its solar module shipments increasing by 25.9% year-over-year (YoY) to 34 GW. While it touts to have achieved group profitability for 2 consecutive quarters this year due to its diversified business, Trina admitted that the profitability of its module business declined owing to the oversupply situation in the solar PV industrial chain and a sharp drop in the market price of PV modules.
While the manufacturer does not specify the quarterly shipments for Q1 and Q2, during the reporting period it shipped 34 GW of PV modules, 1.7 GWh of DC container and energy storage systems (ESS) (representing a nearly 300% YoY increase), and 3.2 GW of solar mounting systems.
At the end of the 1st half of 2024, Trina’s 210 module shipments exceeded 140 GW, led by the company’s 720 W Vertex N series module, based on n-type i-TOPCon advanced technology.
On a cumulative basis, through the same period, the cumulative shipments of TrinaTracker exceeded 23 GW, while the aggregate for DC container and ESS at the end of June 2024 was about 7 GWh.
TOPCon, the current mainstream solar cell technology, remains Trina’s focus area as it continues to improve its i-TOPCon bifacial cell structure and its process flow with front and back contact. In April 2024, it achieved 740.6 W of power output for its 210+ n-type i-TOPCon PV module, with the company calling it a new world record (see China Solar PV News Snippets).
Trina Solar is one of the 8 companies awarded an excellence badge for 2023 for ranking among the top 10 in the TaiyangNews TOP SOLAR MODULES listing for at least 6 months in 2023. A company feature report details Trina’s technological progress of its featured products on the TaiyangNews list (see Trina Solar—Finding optimum module sizes for different applications).
H1 2024 financials
Trina’s H1 operating income amounted to RMB 42.968 billion ($6.03 billion). This was a decline of 12.99% on an annual basis. Its net profit of RMB 526 million ($74 million) represented a YoY drop of 85.14%.
The manufacturer invested RMB 2.71 billion ($381 million) in R&D from January to June 2024. By the end of the reporting period, it had cumulatively filed 5,649 patent applications, ‘with more than 500 patents on TOPCon technology by July.’
Trina continues to focus on R&D to maintain its core competence, including via collaborations with the Institute of Solar Energy at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, in June, and in August with Singapore’s public sector R&D agency, Agency for Science, Technology and Research.
“In the short term, the industry is currently in a cyclical operation stage of oversupply, competition between enterprises is intensifying, and prices in the industrial chain are falling rapidly. In such an environment, integrated leading enterprises are expected to rely on the sales capabilities of component links to ensure the upstream operating rate, form a more obvious cost advantage, and quickly increase market share in the future industry clearance stage,” it stated.
Manufacturing capacity
Trina has been expanding its global production capacity to capture overseas markets. It is working on a 1 GW cell and module base in Indonesia, and a 5 GW module factory in the US. Both of these projects are expected to be commissioned during H2 2024.
By the end of 2024, Trina expects its silicon wafer, cell and module production capacity to reach 55 GW, 105 GW, and 120 GW, respectively. For cells and modules, it will be an increase from the company’s 75 GW annual production capacity at the end of 2023 to 95 GW. However, compared to its plans to increase silicon wafer production capacity to 60 GW as announced previously, it appears Trina plans to stick to 55 GW for this year.
In late 2023, Trina also announced plans for a vertically integrated production base in the UAE under an MoU with the Abu Dhabi Ports. This production base is planned to host 50,000 tons of high-purity silicon, 30 GW of silicon wafers, 5 GW solar cells, and 5 GW PV modules (see Trina Solar To Make Big Move To The Middle East).