Search sponsor
Electronics giant Panasonic Corporation has started to ship its heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) modules from its newly established Malaysian production facility which became operational on 13 December 2012.
Located in Kulim Hi-Tech Park, Kedah, the facility represents the company’s first fully-integrated solar manufacturing base—producing wafers, cells and modules. It covers an area of 70,000 square metres and has annual production capacity of 300MW.
The manufacturing base was set up in order to help Panasonic to meet the high demand in Japan and growing demand around the world. It is also expected to help the company to strengthen its cost competitiveness through the reduction of transportation costs and use of local parts and materials.
Panasonic is also producing HIT solar cells at its two domestic plants and has three module assembly lines—two in Japan and one in Hungary. These plants have a combined annual production capacity of 1.2GW, 600MW for solar cells and 600MW for modules. Including the Malaysian production line, Panasonic now has an overall module production capacity of 900MW.
Panasonic also plans to setep up efforts to provide integrated solar solutions combining solar modules with power conditioners, storage batteries and other components to serve a wider range of customers.
Our focus here at Photovoltaics International has always been on efficiency improvement and driving down the cost per watt of modules. In this issue we take a look at some of the market dynamics driving prices in the supply chain so that you can make better decisions to help reduce your overall cost per watt and increase your efficiency at the same time.
Manufacturing the Solar Future 2012, the second in the Photovoltaics International PV Production Annual series, delivers the next installment of in-depth technical manufacturing information on PV production processes.