Home appliance supplier Tatung Co (大同) on Thursday said its board has approved a plan to construct an 80 megawatt (MW) solar power plant in the Tainan Chi-Gu Fishery and Solar Special Zone (台南七股漁光特區), boosting its total capacity to 120MW.
The move came after the board in December last year agreed to build a 40MW solar power plant in the zone, Tatung said in a statement.
“We can then build Tatung into a big player in solar systems and generate steady long-term income for the company,” the statement said.
The company said it would need to build high-voltage substations and related facilities to connect the large-scale solar power plants with state-run Taiwan Power Co’s (台電) electrical grid.
The firm is to continue developing large-scale solar power plant projects, based on its strong experience in solar power and high-voltage substation integration capabilities, it said.
After building the solar power plants, the company plans to develop microgrid and energy storage systems to better manage its operations and provide efficient connections to the power grid, the statement said.
Tatung did not disclose its planned budget or timetable for the project, but said it aims to raise capital or seek financial support from investors to ensure stable funding.
It plans to establish a NT$4 billion (US$136.8 million) solar power joint venture, in which it would invest no more than NT$1.6 billion, a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.
Tatung did not elaborate on its possible business partners.
The 90-year-old company has seen a dramatic fluctuation in its stock price since December last year, when it announced plans to raise NT$7 billion by issuing 500 million new common shares.
The recapitalization scheme has been seen as the firm’s response to activist shareholders, who sparked a proxy war in the middle of last year, local media reported.
In the first three quarters of last year, Tatung posted net profit of NT$492.22 million, compared with net losses of NT$1.94 billion in the same period a year earlier, thanks to better cost controls.
That translated into earnings per share of NT$0.21, improving from losses per share of NT$0.84 a year earlier, while gross margin improved from 10.43 percent to 16.72 percent, company data showed.
Last year, Tatung’s total revenue fell 2.54 percent from NT$77.78 billion in 2016 to NT$75.81 billion.
Tatung shares yesterday closed at NT$24.2 in Taipei trading, rising 25.39 percent over the past month.
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