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Trina Solar has said that it has successfully reached 100 percent commercial production of 200 micron thickness wafers, down from the previously used 220 micron thickness as the company attempts to improve silicon usage and lower manufacturing costs.
“During the quarter we commenced in-house test production of both
multicrystalline ingots and wafers, and we fully reduced our
monocrystalline wafer production thickness from 220 to 200 microns
thickness in line with our stated goals to expand capacity while
reducing costs as a vertically integrated solar PV manufacturer," said
Mr. Jifan Gao, Trina Solar's Chairman and CEO.
Trina Solar is
also planning a new polysilicon production facility as part of its
vertically integrated business model. The first phase of the
polysilicon production facility will have a production capacity of
3,500 metric tons and the project will eventually scale to a 10,000
metric ton production capacity.
However, the company reiterated
that even with its own polysilicon production, it would still need to
secure feedstock materials via long-term contracts. The company
recently announced that Nitol Group would supply the equivalent of
200MW of virgin
polysilicon to be delivered over five years starting
in 2009, as well as a six-year polysilicon supply agreement with
Sichuan Yongxiang Polysilicon Co., Ltd.
The company said it was
still on track to meet its fully integrated capacity goals of 150MW and
350MW for 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Trina Solar has also
started commercial scale production of its new cell lines 3 and 4,
which are currently producing at 100 percent capacity using 156mm cells
with cell efficiency levels of 16.4 percent, according to the company.
Trina
Solar stated that it had signed sales contracts representing
approximately 100 percent of its expected module production for the
first half of 2008 and 50 percent already allocated in the second half
of next year.
