Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能), the nation’s biggest solar silicon wafer maker, said it had produced the first batch of thin-film solar cell modules from a new advanced 8.5-generation (8.5G) plant.
The plant is expected to account for 20 percent of Green Energy’s total revenues next year after it starts shipping products to customers next quarter, Green Energy said in a press release on Tuesday.
Green Energy is a solar subsidiary of local home appliances maker Tatung Co (大同).
“Green Energy has led its local peers in mass producing solar cell modules from the thin-film plant and is the first step of the [Tatung] group in expanding its solar industry,” company chairman Lin Wei-shan (林蔚山) said in the statement.
The annual capacity of the new plant will be 30 megawatts next year and will expand to 50 megawatts in 2010, the statement said.
However, market researcher iSuppli Corp warned that worldwide revenue from solar panel shipments will decline to US$12.9 billion next year, down 19.1 percent from US$15.9 billion this year. A drop of this magnitude has not occurred in the last 10 years and likely has not happened in the entire history of the solar industry, a report released on Monday said.
Green Energy said it had obtained orders worth of 39 million euros (US$54.6 million) for the thin-film solar cell modules from European power plants and building owners.
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