Trina Solar cancels plans to build 10,000MT polysilicon plant

Trina Solar has announced that it has cancelled plans to build a $1 billion, 10,000MT polysilicon plant in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, China. The plant was only announced in December 2007 and the company had said in early March 2008 that the project planning and financing required for the major project had been making good progress. The plant was to be operational by the end of 2012.

Trina Solar cited the recent improvement in pricing on long-term contracts for the supply of polysilicon as the reason for the cancellation. The pricing improvement is due to the expected influx of supply after years of severe shortages.

"We have made this strategic decision after careful assessment of our raw material requirements, in conjunction with recent and favorable long term polysilicon market and supply condition developments." said Jifan Gao, Trina Solar's Chairman and CEO.

Trina Solar had previously said that its polysilicon requirements for 2008 had been secured from new and existing suppliers and the news would not affect their capacity plans for the year.

However, plans to have polysilicon furnaces supplied from GT Solar will lapse. GT Solar remains a supplier of ingot furnaces to Trina Solar.

"Furthermore, we wish to reaffirm our strong working relationship with our partner GT Solar, which continues to provide us with advanced multicrystalline technology platforms to support our target of 350MW of annualized module capacity by the end of 2008," said Jifan Gao.
 
Tom Zarrella, GT Solar's CEO, said, "Trina Solar is a long-term and valued customer, and we look forward to supplying them with our advanced DSS casting platforms and other products and services, as they continue to grow their business aggressively."

The Trina Solar news may spark other PV manufacturers and polysilicon start-ups to re-assess plans for new capacity introductions.