Drinda Secures Land For 5 GW Solar Cell Production In Oman

Hainan Drinda New Energy Technology, the Chinese solar cell manufacturer, has signed a land lease agreement with the Sohar Free Zone LLC in Oman to locate its planned n-type solar cell production factory with 5 GW annual capacity.   

This marks the official launch of the Chinese company’s $280 million Oman factory, which it first announced earlier this year. Its Oman investment comprises 10 GW high-efficiency n-type solar cell production, to be constructed in 2 phases of 5 GW each (see Chinese Company Announces New 5 GW Solar Cell Production Fab In Oman).   

Drinda, which produces solar cells through Jietai Solar (JTPV), is looking at 2025 to start commercial operations of the Oman factory. It sees this 5 GW facility in the Sohar Free Trade Zone in North Al Batinah Governorate as marking an important milestone for its global strategic layout.  

The group also released its 9M 2024 financial results recently, announcing 35.29% year-on-year (YoY) increase in its cell shipments of 26.45 GW. This comprised 23.70 GW of 89.60% of n-type cells.   

Overseas sales gathered momentum for the company as the share of its global markets increased from 4.69% in 2023, to 18.46% during the initial 9 months. It specifically counts Türkiye and Europe as the markets where it leads the industry in market share.   

Nevertheless, its Q3 2024 revenues of RMB 1.83 billion ($257.07 million) declined by 63.14% year-on-year (YoY) with a net loss of RMB 344.77 million ($48.51 million), a 153.91% YoY drop. During 9M 2024, its revenues of RMB 8.20 billion ($1.15 billion) went down by 42.96% YoY mainly due to the drop in prices in the industrial supply chain. It registered a net loss of RMB 735.07 million ($103.38 million), as the numbers fell by 146.74% during the same comparative period.  

Drinda management is confident that the supply side environment is set to improve as industry demand continues to grow in the future as industry associations and relevant authorities urge companies to prevent low-price competition (see China Solar PV News Snippets: Kiwa PI Berlin At TaiyangNews Reliable PV Module Design Conference & More).   

The manufacturer is also actively developing perovskite and TBC technologies as part of its R&D activities, including in collaboration with the Ningbo Institute of Materials, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. For n-type technology upgrades, it also cooperates with the University of New South Wales, Australia, the National University of Singapore, and Zhejiang University.  

Drinda has also launched a new-generation n-type cell called MoNo 2 which the company’s R&D Manager Dr. Xinrui An discussed during the TaiyangNews Reliable PV Module Design 2024 Conference recently (see Keeping Modules Reliable Despite Pricing Pressure: TaiyangNews Reliable PV Module Design 2024 Conference Day 1). 

At the end of September 2024, Drinda’s annual n-type solar cell production capacity was 40 GW with conversion efficiency exceeding 26.3%.