Chinese Silicon Wafer Maker Expanding With 35 GW Capacity

• Jiangsu Meike to add 35 GW large size green high efficiency ultra-thin monocrystalline silicon wafer production capacity
• The RMB 3.6 billion investment will be brought online in 3 phases of 15 GW, 10 GW and 10 GW, respectively
• On achieving completion, the company expects it to achieve annual sales of RMB 18 billion

Continuing the recent solar trend of announcing 'large size' capacity expansions, Chinese silicon wafer manufacturer Jiangsu Meike Solar Technology Co., Ltd. has announced a 35 GW production expansion to add what it calls will be large size green high efficiency ultra-thin monocrystalline silicon wafer capacity.

Part of the Huantai Group, Jiangsu Meike entered an agreement to set up the project with Yangzhong Economic Development Zone in Jiangsu province recently.

According to local media reports that covered the signing ceremony, Jiangsu Meike shared that it plans to bring this capacity online in 3 phases for a combined investment of RMB 3.6 billion ($556 million). Under phase I, 15 GW is aimed to come up, followed by 10 GW each under phase II and phase III.

Among expenses factored in, Jiangsu Meike said it will purchase 700 sets of equipment including cutting tools, automatic stick lines, intelligent control assembly lines and degumming machines.

The capacity will be built on 150,000 sq. mtr. space using the company's existing land and plant facilities. Once the project is online, it is expected to help the company achieve annual sales of RMB 18 billion ($2.78 billion) with annual profits and taxes of RMB 1 billion ($154 million).

Jiangsu Meike is part of the Jiangsu Huantai Group that's dedicated to solar PV silicon wafer manufacturing. As per the company website, it has 2 production units, one each in Jiangsu's Yangzhong city and Inner Mongolia's Baotou city with a total monocrystalline silicon wafer manufacturing capacity of 15 GW.

Back in September 2020 the group started building a new 12 GW monocrystalline ingot production project through another subsidiary called Baotou Metco. The RMB 2.8 billion ($433 million) investment is expected to complete by June 2022. It will take Baotou's total single crystal production capacity to 15 GW. In the long term it is expected to reach 30 GW by 2024. Once the scale is achieved, Huantai said it may consider strategic collaborations with downstream customers. The group counts Tongwei, Chint among its major customers.

Large sized solar PV modules have captured the fancy of several solar PV module makers who have in turn announced major capacity expansions and the upstream makers are now scampering to expand their capacity of large sized wafers and cells to satiate this demand.

TaiyangNews is bringing together some of these players for our Advanced Solar Module Technologies conference on January 27 & 28, 2021 which is where we will also launch the 2^nd edition of TaiyangNews Advanced Module Technologies Report. Registrations are free here.