Solar manufacturer JinkoSolar ended 2023 with 78.5GW of solar modules shipped, up 76.4% year-over-year.
In the fourth quarter of the year the company shipped 26.3GW of solar modules – a quarterly increase from the 21.2GW registered in Q3 2023 – and 1.5GW of solar cells and wafers, up 67.7% from the same period in 2022. Shipments for cells and wafers in 2023 reached 5GW. The year-on-year growth of module shipments helped the company regain the top spot for global module shipments in 2023.
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Continuing its shift towards n-type technology, the company had exceeded 70GW of n-type capacity by the end of Q4 2023. The mass production of Jinko’s n-type tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) cell efficiency exceeded 26%, while the integrated cost of n-type products are nearly on par with p-type products, explained David Lee, chairman and CEO at JinkoSolar.
The first two phases of JinkoSolar’s vertically integrated Shanxi plant in China are expected to gradually start production in the first half of 2024, and ramp up production in the second half of the year. Once fully operational, the Shanxi plant will have an annual nameplate capacity of 56GW and will cover the production from ingots to solar modules.
“This innovative production model relying on fully integrated automation will greatly improve efficiency in labor and operational processes and is expected to bring a significant reduction in operating costs once we reach full production,” said Lee.
In its forecast for Q1 2024, the company expects to ship between 18-20GW of PV modules, while for the full year of 2024 shipments should range between 100-110GW, of which 90% are expected to be n-type modules.
JinkoSolar aims to have an annual production capacity of 120GW, 11GW, and 130GW for mono wafers, solar cells, and PV modules, respectively, by the end of 2024. Similar to the shipment figures, 90% of the production capacity is expected to be for n-type production. “By then, we believe mass-produced N-type cell efficiency will have reached 26.5%,” said Li.
Reduced investment in capacity expansion
Despite the current progress in the vertically integrated plant in Shanxi, the company will reduce investment in capacity expansions in 2024, due to the current supply chain and market conditions. The focus will remain on expanding the company’s n-type capacity with the 28GW vertically integrated plant in Shanxi and nearly 4GW of annual nameplate n-type cell and module capacity in Vietnam.
“We expect the decline in module prices to significantly improve the economics of solar energy industry in the short-to-mid-term, and we anticipate demand in the global PV market to continue to increase in 2024. Meanwhile, rapid iterations of new technologies and the elimination of obsolete production capacity will also accelerate the consolidation of the industry,” said Li.
In an interview with PV Tech Premium last month, Lee said he remained “bullish” amid a looming industry downturn driven by fierce competition among module manufacturers.
Increased shipment boost results
Total revenues during Q4 2023 were up by 9.4% YoY with RMB32.83 billion (US$4.62 billion), due to the increase in shipments of PV modules in line with the global growth in demand and record installation of solar PV last year with 444GW. A trend that is expected to continue in 2024 with BloombergNEF estimating up to 665GW of PV capacity for this year.
“As module prices fell more than expected in the fourth quarter and nearly 50% of our modules were sold to the Chinese market at lower prices, gross margin for the fourth quarter decreased significantly to 12.5% from 19.3% in the third quarter,” said Lee.
For the entire year of 2023, JinkoSolar had revenues of RMB118.68 billion, up 42.8% from 2022’s results.