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Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd has officially announced the construction of a new solar cell manufacturing plant at its Nishikinohama Factory, Kaizuka City, Osaka, Japan. Groundbreaking took place on February 17th, 2009 with the new facility expected to be completed in October 2009.

The new facility will be dedicated to the production of Sanyo’s Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer (HIT) solar cells. The company also announced that HIT production at its Shimane Plant in Unnan City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan will also be expanded to meet demand for its HIT solar cells in Japan and Europe.

Sanyo said that the combined current capacity of the two plants would reach 340MW by the end of its FY2008 and reach 600MW at the end of FY201O when the newly announced expansion plans reach full capacity.

However, according to Photovoltaics International’s 2008, capacity expansion forecast for Sanyo, the expansion plans are approximately 1-year behind previous projections. This could be attributed to Sanyo’s financial problems and subsequent planned acquisition by Panasonic Corporation.

Sanyo also reiterated plans touted in early 2008 that solar cell capacity is planned to reach 2GW by 2020. Coupled to recently announced plans to expand thin film production in a joint venture with Nippon Oil Corporation, to be named SANYO ENEOS Solar Co., Ltd., solar capacity is forecasted by the company to reach a combined 4GW by 2020.