‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JinkoSolar is investing US$500 million to set up a monocrystalline ingot and wafer manufacturing facility in Vietnam that will supply its cell and module plants in the US and Malaysia.
Having received approval from local authorities earlier this year, JinkoSolar has already started work on the plant in the northern Quảng Ninh province that is being set up to support its existing overseas production facilities.
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With an annual capacity of 7GW, it is expected the plant will be operational in the first quarter of 2022.
The decision to construct the plant in Vietnam is part of JinkoSolar’s strategy to ensure the long-term stability of the company’s global supply chain, said Nigel Cockroft, general manager of JinkoSolar (US).
“This facility enables the use of raw material inputs from a variety of countries, thus increasing the amount of local content used in our modules, and especially in the modules produced in the Jacksonville, Florida, facility.”
Opened in 2018, JinkoSolar’s Jacksonville plant is focused on the manufacture of high-efficiency 60-cell and 72-cell monocrystalline PERC modules.
Coinciding with the publication of its Q2 financial results earlier this month, JinkoSolar CEO Xiande Li said the company is taking initiatives to “increase the reliability of our services to the US market”. As part of this strategy, the firm recently signed a five-year polysilicon supply deal with Wacker Chemie and formed strategic co-operations with manufacturers such as Tongwei and Xinte.
JinkoSolar shipped 5.2GW of solar products in Q2 2021, a 16.4% increase year-on-year. The company expects to end 2021 with solar wafer, cell and module capacity of 32.5GW, 24GW and 45GW, respectively.
