Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation’s biggest silicon solar wafer maker, yesterday said its board approved plans for an additional NT$600 million (US$18.5 million) to expand capacity in Taiwan to cope with fast-recovering demand.
Earlier this year, Green Energy spent NT$1.5 billion on boosting slicing capacity to 235 megawatts from 90 megawatts last year.
This quarter, “Green Energy has fully utilized its equipment, but we are still unable to satisfy customer demand,” company president Lin Hur-lon (林和龍) said in a press release yesterday.
“We plan to increase furnaces and slicing equipment ahead of schedule in accordance with market demand,” Lin said, adding that all equipment had been ordered this quarter.
The Taoyuan-based solar wafer maker plans to boost silicon ingot capacity in Taiwan by 20 percent to 360 megawatts by the end of the year from 300 megawatts last year.
The board of Green Energy also gave the go-ahead to a management proposal to further increase slicing capacity in Taiwan to 300 megawatts from 235 megawatts.
The solar wafer maker plans to use part of the NT$2.5 billion it raised last month selling new shares in the form of global depositary receipts.
Green Energy also plans to start making silicon ingots in China with an initial annual capacity of 50 megawatts next year, in an investment totaling several hundred million dollars.
It plans to increase annual slicing capacity there at the same time.
The solar wafer maker suffered losses of NT$98.8 million in the first half, compared with net profits of NT$62.4 million a year earlier.
Green Energy blamed oversupply and reduced demand from solar farm developers amid the global recession.
Shares of Green Energy yesterday slipped 1.55 percent to NT$76.3, while the benchmark TAIEX index inched up by 0.29 percent.
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