PVTIME – On September 10, solar cell manufacturing giant Tongwei Solar successfully adjusted its monocrystalline silicon supply contract with LONGi Green Energy to include an additional 1 billion wafers for 2021. The amended contract brings the total amount of monocrystalline wafers to be supplied by LONGi to Tongwei from 1.6 billion to 2.6 billion pieces.
In an effort to realize its ambitious goal of achieving solar cell production capacity beyond 60GW by the end of 2022, Tongwei originally entered into the supply agreement on the condition that LONGi would supply it with 1.4 billion pieces of monocrystalline wafer in 2020, 1.6 billion in 2021, and 1.8 billion in 2022.
Tongwei’s decision to significantly alter the supply agreement recently is very much in line with its strategic plan to expand production as announced in February of this year. Currently, the construction of the previously announced 30GW Solar Photovoltaic Industrial Base Project in Jintang County of Chengdu is well underway. Phase I of this project is slated to be completed by the end of 2020 and put into production at the beginning of 2021. Upon completion, the entire project will generate an estimated output value increase of about CNY 70 billion and create more than 10,000 new employment posts.
Presently, with an annual solar cell manufacturing capacity of 20GW, Tongwei is the largest manufacturer of solar cells in the world. Tongwei has expressed that the company possesses leading research and development capabilities and has accumulated various production technologies in the area of solar cell production. It not only has cost to performance advantages in the production of P-type PERC cells but also has its sights set on new technologies such as Perc+, Topcon, and HJT, with a pilot HJT production line having already reached 400MW in 2019. Moreover, according to long term plans, the company expects its capacity to reach 80-100GW by 2023.
