FuturaSun, an Italy-based solar panel manufacturer, announced that it has doubled the manufacturing capacity of solar modules up to 1 GW at its Taizhou facility in China. The company opened a new production facility near the previous facility, with two production lines and 550 MW of production capacity.
Two new production lines – supplied by an unspecified Chinese company – have doubled the site’s annual production capacity to 1 GW. The new lines will process 166-210mm half-cut cells for 2,120 x 1,050mm modules. One of the modules made at the site is a monocrystalline PERC product with a 60-cell dual-glass structure and power output of 320-330 W which was launched by FuturaSun in February 2020.
“The half-cut configuration and the increase in number of busbars – the distinctive feature of FuturaSun’s latest top-range modules – improve the panel’s efficiency and duration,” said the manufacturer. “Even during the [Covid-19] lockdown we kept going, designing and launching three new modules, bringing renewable energy to new countries, organizing virtual trade fairs in multiple languages. In a race against the clock, and despite the challenges this odd year has thrown at us, we have even doubled our production capacity,” said FuturaSun CEO Alessandro Barin.
The company is headquartered in Cittadella, in the Padua province of northern Italy. The company’s Italian staff, said FuturaSun, focus on R&D in areas such as interdigitated back-contact (IBC) cells, cylindrical ribbons, glass-glass solutions and modules with independent sections. “FuturaSun is the only European PV company that has found its place in China among the giants in the photovoltaic industry. Moreover, now that it has increased its production capacity, the company can allocate part of its production to the Asian markets,” the company said in a press release.
REGlobal’s Views: Manufacturers are boosting capacity to decrease per-unit costs, maintain their market share and keep competition at bay. Resultantly, an aggressive expansion by the world’s biggest solar manufacturers is under way, spurring a battle for market share and push to cut costs that signal more pain ahead for the industry.
