With the world's leading module manufacturers announcing big capacity expansions to keep up with the anticipated quickly growing demand for solar, they are looking into locking in supply for any materials needed to realize these large volumes, even more as some of these materials have been in short supply in recent months, such as glass.
A company called Xuchang Ancai New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. is now entering many others to enter or expand solar glass production. Xuchang Ancai is now building a PV glass factory with an annual production capacity of 48 million sq. mtr., translating roughly to around 9.5 GW with a thickness of 1.8mm to 4.0mm. All of this capacity addition will support large sized modules.
The company broke ground onsite to add this capacity in Xuchang City of Henan province for an estimated RMB 1.089 billion ($169 million), shared the management. Xuchang Ancai expects this project to bring it RMB 1.06 billion ($164 million) in annual sales income once it is fully ramped up.
Xuchang Ancai New Energy is part of the China Pingmei Shenma Group that along with Xuchang city and Henan Investment Group is building a 5 GW solar module fab in the city as its maiden investment in the solar PV space, the company announced in August 2020 (see China PV News Snippets: Xinte, Shenma Module Production).
In July 2020, major Chinese PV glass producer Flat Glass said it will expand its annual capacity by 42 million sq. mtr. (see China PV News Snippets: Risen Energy, Flat Glass).
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