Major polysilicon and wafer producer GCL-Poly Energy Holdings reduced losses in its Materials business segment in 2019 by continuing to reduce polysilicon production while boosting solar wafer capacity by 5GW.
Andy Klump, chief executive officer and founder of Shanghai-based consultancy Clean Energy Associates, examines what lessons the solar industry can learn from the COVID-19 outbreak and its impact on global supply chains.
Preliminary data compiled by PV Tech highlights an unprecedented level of solar industry capacity expansion plans having been announced in just the first quarter of 2020, easily surpassing any total annual plans in the history of the industry.
Taking a more pessimistic view of the impact of COVID-19 on the end-market demand for solar installations in 2020, IHS Markit expects global installs to decline 16% to 105GW in 2020, compared to around 125GW in 2019.
‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JA Solar surpassed 10GW of PV module shipments in 2019 for the first time, while targeting further growth of 16GW of shipments in 2020.
‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member, GCL System Integration Technology (GCL-SI) is to build a 60GW solar module megacomplex in Hefei City, China at a cost of approximately US$2.5 billion over a four-year period.
‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member discloses that its manufacturing operations in Jiangsu, China had suffered an outbreak of COVID-19 that had necessitated a temporary partial shutdown.
Having already guided expected GAAP net losses of US$145-195 million for 2020, high-performance PV manufacturer, SunPower is planning to make operating cuts to save around US$50 million, due to ongoing impact of COVID-19 and has withdrawn previous financial guidance for the year.
‘Solar Module Super League (SMSL) member, Canadian Solar plans to increase module assembly capacity by 3GW in 2020, giving the company a total nameplate capacity of 16GW, while shipments were guided between a range of 10GW to 12GW for the year.
