Leading Chinese module manufacturer Trina Solar has published its results for the first half of 2024, which include module shipments of 34GW and total revenue of US$6.05 billion.
Trina Solar noted that its cumulative shipments of 210mm modules, which includes its Vertex N tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) series, have now exceeded 140GW, after breaking the 120GW milestone in the first quarter of this year.
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The company’s latest module shipments are a 25.9% increase over the same period in 2023, and are close to double the volume sold in the first half of 2022, as shown in the graph below. In addition to these figures, Trina Solar shipped 1.7GWh of DC container and battery energy storage systems (BESS), alongside 3.2GW of PV mounting systems in the first half of 2024.
Trina Solar’s latest results follow a number of encouraging milestones for the company, including signing a collaboration agreement with the Institute of Solar Energy at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (IES-UPM), and ranking second on Wood Mackenzie’s list of top PV module manufacturers earlier this year.
The company announced that it has cumulatively invested US$381.4 million in research and development (R&D) as it looks to further improve the technical performance of its products, having achieved milestones such as new power conversion efficiency benchmarks in March of this year.
However, Trina Solar’s revenue in the first half of this year is the lowest revenue posted in a six-month period in two years, and it is a striking decline considering the company’s relatively stable shipments of products. Much of this could be attributed to falling module prices across the solar industry, with shrinking margins in the key markets of the US and Europe cutting into the profits of industry leaders.
Earlier this year, Trina Solar executive president Helena Li told PV Tech that “there will be consolidation” in the global solar sector as it matures, and the latest downturn in prices may just be a step in that process. Indeed, Trina Solar CEO Gai Jifan, alongside JinkoSolar CEO Li Xiande, said earlier this year that the recent “irrational” plunge in module prices is unlikely to continue in the long-term, expressing hope that downturn in profits will be a temporary state of affairs.
Looking ahead, Trina Solar expects to commission a 5GW module manufacturing facility in the US, alongside a 1GW cell and module factory in Indonesia, before the end of the year.
