SunPower cracks China PV market with 120MW of planned CPV projects
Post Date: 27 Mar 2014 Viewed: 377
Major PVEP (PV Energy Provider), SunPower is to supply its C7 solar concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) technology to several power plant projects planned for Inner Mongolia, China through a consortium of Chinese partners.
Initially, a deal was done back in December of 2012, throughSunPower’s joint venture firm, Huaxia Concentrated Photovoltaic Power, which includes Tianjin Zhonghuan Semiconductor Co., Ltd., Inner Mongolia Power (Group) Co., Ltd. and Hohhot Jinqiao City Development Company, Ltd., however foreign companies such as rival First Solar planned projects in the past without coming to fruition.
SunPower noted that its C7 CPV system, which uses its third-generation ‘Maxeon’ cells with efficiencies of up to 24.5% would be deployed, though only around 70MW of cells would normally be required for a 400MW C7 power plant.
The company said that it would supply over 70MW of 70 Maxeon cell packages for the first phases of two projects. One would be a 20MW project in Saihan and the second project would be located in Wuchuan with size of 100MW. Both projects are said to be located in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia with both projects expected to be completed in 2015, according to the company.
"Today's announcement is a first step in our aggressive efforts to break into the Chinese market," said Tom Werner, SunPower president and CEO. "Working together with our strong local partners, we believe that we can deploy significant volumes of our SunPower C7 Tracker power plants to help serve China's growing need for clean power."
SunPower’s CEO had noted in its most recent earnings conference call that projects in China using its C7 technology would begin construction later in 2014.
The JV firm is said to be focused manufacturing and the deployment of the C7 technology having a 300MW nameplate capacity assembly plant in Jinqiao Development Zone, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia with a 50MW production line in operation, noted SunPower.