Taiwan’s Fate – A Niche Solar Player or Top Solar Producer

Taiwanese cell producers such as Gintech, Motech, Neo Solar power etc. have been making hay, thanks to the solar trade wars between major blocs. Taiwan has been ignored by the big countries fighting with each other over the imports/exports of solar products. This has meant that the well capitalized large Taiwanese cell producers have been running at full capacity supplying solar cells to the Japanese, Chinese, European and USA module players. Though China has lower cost production capacity, they have been forced to import from Taiwan to beat the USA restrictions on Chinese solar cell imports. With 100% utilization, the Taiwanese cell players are returning to the black from the brutal global solar downturn.

Read more about Taiwanese Solar Cell Manufacturers here.

These companies are now expanding their operations downstream into module production. Their forte historically has been solar cell production, where the Taiwanese beat others in terms of cell efficiency and quality. They don’t have large upstream or module operations. Polysilicion production on the island is almost non-existent, though they have a couple of large solar ingot and wafer players in the form of Green Energy. Solar module production will allow the company to increase their footprint and compete better with the Chinese solar giants such as Trina Solar, Renesola and others. This will diversify their customer base and allow them to emerge as end sellers on their own.

However I don’t think that these companies will succeed too much, given that their module capacity will be too low compared to the multi GW capacities of the Chinese companies. Also the solar trade wars are dying down with US and China trying to come to an agreement. The Chinese companies are also penetrating Japan which is the major source of Taiwanese solar cell demand. These companies will, in my view remain niche players rather than emerging as top 10 solar panel producers.

DigiTimes

Taiwan-based crystalline silicon solar cell maker Gintech Energy will offer PV modules for own-brand sale by the end of 2013, and fellow makers Solartech Energy and Neo Solar Power (NSP) will expand annual PV module production capacity from 30 MWp currently to 60 MWp in the fourth quarter of 2013 and from 200 MWp to 400 MWp in 2014, respectively, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report. Gintech will outsource production of PV modules.

Can the Taiwanese Cell Producers Threaten the Chinese Solar Giants

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