During the past few months, Tongwei has officially moved into the top-position as the leading solar cell manufacturer – by production volume – serving the PV industry.
We have tracked the annual R&D spending of 12 key publicly listed PV module manufacturers over the last 10 years. We present our new methodology with a broader scope which reveals record levels of investment in solar innovation.
For all intents and purposes, 2018 may be remembered as the year that Taiwanese solar manufacturing moved from its former cell-making glory days of the past (Taiwan solar 1.0) to adjust to the new reality as defined by China’s bulldozing annihilation of cash-struck overseas manufacturing regions in recent times.
Since Chinese investments into major cell and module facilities started - more than 10 years ago - success ultimately has been driven by overseas market-share gains, above other technical or financial benchmarks that otherwise would be expected.
As PV Tech previously reported, Taiwan’s solar industry supply chain failed to recover lost revenue in 2017, despite strong global demand growth and expectation that installations topped 100GW.
The planned merger of Taiwan-based PV manufacturers Gintech Energy, Neo Solar Power (NSP) and Solartech Energy to be called United Renewable Energy Co (UREC) is to receive an investment from the Taiwan government, according to reports.
The majority of Taiwanese solar industry companies that are public listed on the TSE have recently reported December, 2017 sales figures, highlighting how elusive the recovery in sales has been in 2017.
Leading Taiwanese solar cell and module manufacturer Motech Industries said it was entering into a Joint Venture (JV) with metallisation paste supplier, Giga Solar Materials Corp to establish a solar module assembly plant in Taiwan to meet future domestic demand.
What a start to the PV Taiwan 2017 week! There have been some rather tame mergers and acquisitions in the solar PV industry over the years - not to mention the shuffling of zombie factories within China – but the news today that Neo Solar Power, Gintech Energy Corp., and Solartech Energy are planning to merge is worthy of far more scrutiny.
As expected, three of Taiwan’s merchant solar cell and module producers, Gintech Energy Corp, Neo Solar Power (NSP) and Solartech Energy have officially announced plans to merge and exit the ‘foundry’ business model they were founded on.
