Taiwan’s URE still considering possible US solar manufacturing plant

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Speaking to PV Tech at Neo Solar Power’s (NSP) headquarters in Hsin Chu, Taiwan, Andy Shen, NSP’s president confirmed that the establishment of a US manufacturing plant remained a possibility, but noted that it would considered in-line with downstream partnerships in the US, similar to the approach of leading ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member, JinkoSolar.

United Renewable Energy Co., Ltd. (URE), the planned name for three of Taiwan’s merchant solar cell and module producers, Gintech Energy Corp, Neo Solar Power (NSP) and Solartech Energy are still evaluating the commercial rationale of establishing a US-based PV manufacturing plant, post the merger, which is being targeted for October 1, 2018.
 
Speaking to PV Tech at Neo Solar Power’s (NSP) headquarters in Hsin Chu, Taiwan, Andy Shen, NSP’s president confirmed that the establishment of a US manufacturing plant remained a possibility, but noted that it would considered in-line with downstream partnerships in the US, similar to the approach of leading ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member, JinkoSolar. 

“At the moment, this is still our plan. We would expect to work with some local partners and customers.” With all the recent fanfare, only one downstream [US] player and one Chinese manufacturer plan to setup a smaller than originally planned production plant. “Now that kind of plan is what we should be looking into, compared to blindly go there, pick the ground and then starting to look for customers. So we want something with a similar structure on a similar scale in partnership because it is more about what happens after the establishment of a plant,” noted Shen.

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Shen also highlighted that NSP already had downstream project development partnerships in the US, such as with Green Sky, primarily in the commercial and industrial (C&I) market for customers such as Walmart, Target and Amazon.
 
Shen also highlighted that post the URE merger the company would have an in-house solar cell capacity of around 5GW as well as approximately 3GW of module assembly capacity. Not all of the capacity is based in Taiwan. NSP themselves have around 700MW of production in Taiwan.
 
In the downstream sector URE would have around 1GW of capable systems business, which would be a key part of supporting the Taiwanese government’s plans to install 20GW of PV in the country by 2025, as nuclear power is closed down. 

8 October 2024
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
PV Tech has been running an annual PV CellTech Conference since 2016. PV CellTech USA, on 8-9 October 2024 is our second PV CellTech conference dedicated to the U.S. manufacturing sector. The event in 2023 was a sell out success and 2024 will once again gather the key stakeholders from PV manufacturing, equipment/materials, policy-making and strategy, capital equipment investment and all interested downstream channels and third-party entities. The goal is simple: to map out PV manufacturing in the U.S. out to 2030 and beyond.
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Understanding PV module supply to the European market in 2025. PV ModuleTech Europe 2024 is a two-day conference that tackles these challenges directly, with an agenda that addresses all aspects of module supplier selection; product availability, technology offerings, traceability of supply-chain, factory auditing, module testing and reliability, and company bankability.

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