Delta Electronics Inc (台達電子) is to spend US$290 million on a new solar cell plant as the nation moves to increase its use of renewable energy, a company spokeswoman said yesterday.
Delta Electronics’ investment, via its subsidiary DelSolar Co (旺能光電), will make it one of the main players in the country’s rapidly evolving solar energy sector, Austin Chiu (邱詩茜) of DelSolar said.
“After the project is finished, we’ll become one of the biggest solar cell manufacturers in Taiwan,” she said.
The plant will be located near Jhunan (竹南) in Miaoli County and will be completed within three years, she said.
“The profit margin won’t be too high compared with some electronics products,” she said. “However, the demand for products like solar cells is expected to keep rising because of concern about global warming.”
The government said in December it planned to boost its use of solar panels by a factor of 200 over the next 15 years in an effort to increase clean energy.
Solar panels across the country currently have a capacity of five megawatts, enough to power 500 buildings, but by 2025 that figure is targeted to rise to 1,000 megawatts, the Bureau of Energy said.
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