United Renewable Energy Co (URE, 聯合再生), one of the nation’s biggest solar module manufacturers, yesterday said it is developing next-generation solar modules with a higher conversion rate and tapping into the energy storage market in its latest efforts to turn around the grim solar sector.
The Hsinchu-based solar company said it is developing perovskite solar modules with a conversion rate of 26 percent, which is 3 percent or 4 percent higher than the silicon-based solar modules it makes using TOPCon technology.
URE’s aim is to boost the conversion rate to more than 30 percent over the next three to four years, company chairman Sam Hong (洪傳獻) told reporters yesterday.
Photo on courtesy of United Renewable Energy Co
Solar modules with higher conversation rates are more suitable for population-dense areas with limited land to deploy ground-mounted solar farms, he said.
The company plans to start shipping the first batch of perovskite solar modules by the end of next year.
“We have new teams focused on exploring new business [for growth] in addition to our existing solar module businesses,” Hong said, adding that URE is making inroads into the energy storage market.
The company plans to offer behind-the-meter (BTM) energy storage and energy management solutions for enterprises to address the widening gap of electricity rates between peak and off-peak hours.
Based on URE’s calculations, the rate for industrial users during peak hours is about NT$8 per unit, which is four times higher than the NT$2 per unit charged by Taiwan Power Co (台電) during off-peak hours.
A BTM battery storage provides cost-effective power that can be used on site without passing through a meter. URE plans to build its first BTM storage in Tainan with an investment of NT$75 million (US$2.36 million). The facility, with 4-megawatt capacity, would start operations by the second quarter of next year, the company said.
The new business strategies come as URE and its local peers have been struggling to make a profit in the past one-and-half years due to sluggish market demand and dipping solar prices at home and in overseas markets.
The company said solar market prospects remain grim this year. Demand is picking up, but the recovery has fallen short of its expectations mainly due to bureaucratic inertia at home. URE originally said demand would bounce back rapidly after the presidential election earlier this year because of reduced uncertainty about the government’s energy policy.
“We are expecting an improvement in the fourth quarter, which is usually a peak season for the industry. However, it is premature to say how much improvement we are going to make,” URE chief financial officer Pan Laylay (潘蕾蕾) said.
Revenue and factory utilization would improve this quarter compared with last quarter, Pan said, adding that factory utilization fell to less than 50 percent in the first half of this year.
The company posted NT$1.11 billion in losses for the first half of this year, up from a loss of NT$363 million during the same period last year.
Revenue plummeted 63 percent year-on-year to NT$2.86 billion during the first two quarters, compared with NT$7.64 billion a year earlier.
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