Japan’s solar photovoltaic market will triple this year as the country faces a potential non-nuclear future, creating demand that will likely cause price hikes on the spot market, a local research firm said yesterday.
Japan is on track to install seven gigawatts of grid-connected solar power capacity this year, three times the amount it installed last year, said EnergyTrend, a solar research team at TrendForce Corp (集邦科技).
The country has been forced to accelerate its development of renewable energy sources because of the continued shutdown of most of its nuclear power plants and demand is expected to continue to rise, the research firm said.
Japanese solar cell demand last month was at least 20 percent higher than that in August, EnergyTrend said.
Taiwan is not likely to benefit much from this growing demand because Japan mainly imports cheaper solar panels from China, EnergyTrend analyst Aurthur Hsu (胥嘉政) said.
However, Taiwanese manufacturers could still benefit from rising global solar cell prices.
Taiwan’s solar cell exports to Japan totaled US$237.29 million in the first seven months of the year, up 166.15 percent from the same period a year ago, according to official data.
However, the growth came mostly from higher unit prices than higher export volumes, Hsu said.
Since the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in 2011, operations at most of Japan’s nuclear power plants have been suspended, with the contribution of nuclear electricity generation falling from 33 percent in 2010 to 2.15 percent last year, EnergyTrend said.
The continued resistance to reopening the nuclear plants and higher electricity prices resulting from the use of imported fossil fuels to fill the power gap have prompted Japan to invest heavily in solar power.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
AI-FUELED DEMAND: The company has been benefiting from the skyrocketing prices for DRAM chips amid the AI frenzy, especially its core product — DDR4 DRAM chips DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday reported that its revenue for the first quarter surged 582.91 percent to NT$49.09 billion (US$1.54 billion) from NT$7.19 billion a year earlier, as the supply crunch caused chip price spikes. Last quarter’s figure is the highest on record. On a quarterly basis, revenue jumped 63.14 percent from NT$30.09 billion, the company said. In January, Nanya Technology expected global DRAM supply scarcity to continue through the first half of 2028, thanks to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) forecast prices of standard DRAM chips would rise between 58 percent and 63
RSS