Sponsored by China New Energy Chamber of Commerce and China Council For The Promotion Of International Trade Pudong Sub-council, the 6th AsiaSolar PV Industry Exhibition was successfully held on May 5-7 while the 6thiaSolar PV Industry Forum was held on May 5-6 at Shanghai Everbright International Hotel.
Overall Chinese Solar Market Looking Bright
The 6thiaSolar PV Industry Exhibition gathered domestic as well as international companies of solar materials, cells, components, equipments and systems. These exhibitors include Suntech, Hanergy, Trina Solar, LDK, Henan Yanyuan Photovoltaic Energy, Dalian Spark New Energy Development, GCL-Poly Energy, Scheltter, Centrotherm, Canergy and Solutia, etc.
Due to European sovereignty debt crisis, major European markets have cut their subsidies for the solar industry which in turn weakened the market demand. Many solar related companies had to adjust their focus to emerging countries. Besides, with the nuclear crisis in Japan, China as a major energy consuming country has a lot to offer the solar industry and attracts global solar companies. EnergyTrend as a trusted and invited media, found that many companies attending the event have expressed their confidence in the future development of global solar market.
Henan Yanyuan Photovoltaic Energy unveiled its latest technology developed in house and Wang Hui, the president, showed his confidence in the new technology. He said the company is also developing another new equipment. It is partially developed and is expected to be available on the market in the next two to three quarters. The company plans to invest in 6 production lines capable of producing 60 MW with 3 months window of trial run. There will be another 5 production lines going online after the first round of expansion projects succeeded. According to the company’s planning, the second round of capital expansion will reach 30MW per production line. In 5 to 6 years, the company will reach 600MW. Mr. Wang also indicated that in the next 3 t0 5 years, domestic demand for solar products will experience rapid growth leading the industry to another peak.
LDK’s Chief Public Relation Officer, Yao Feng, stated that the overall solar market is looking bright. However, the fluctuation of market development may occur from time to time due to subsidy changes and weather conditions. LDK is looking to expand its capacity to meet the market demand. Polysilicon capacity has reached 15000 tons and is expected to expand to 25000 tons by the end of the year while the current 1.5GW capacity of components will be expanded to 3GW by the end of the year. He also shared his view on market forecast that domestic installation volume will reach 1GW in 2011 with an annual growth rate of 100% and will continue the same growth rate next year.
The 6thiaSolar PV Industry Forum Featuring Executive Panel Discussion to Talk about Global Solar Market
As a focus of the event, the 6thiaSolar PV Industry Forum placed great importance on the overview of the global mainstream markets, covering domestic as well as foreign solar related policies and trends, development of on-grid systems and green building integration, and latest development of cell and thin film technologies.
The forum invited over 500 industry related professionals to join the discussion of development trend of solar industry, including Dr. Wolfgang Palz from WCRE, Dr. David Ranne from International Solar Energy Society, and other senior officers from various institutions and leading companies.
The forum is divided into two days. The executive panel discussion focused on solar policy and market as well as technologies that attracted wide attention. Dr. Wolfgang Palz, Dr. David Ranne and other senior officials talked about effects of policy changes on global solar industry. The topics of the second day mainly focused on various professional areas including a main conference covering market trends and policies and sub-conferences covering CSP, thermal power, thin film, smart grid, and installation projects.
In the main conference, Wang Bo-Hua, the secretary-general of China Photovoltaic Industry Alliance shared his view on the development of Chinese solar industry as well as the perspectives of such. He said that solar industry scale is expanding rapidly in China. Localized industry clusters are appearing but some blind investment in projects are also developing. The technology advancements are facing bottlenecks and globalization has put much pressure on the competitiveness of domestic companies.
As the first company to adopt sterling thermal energy technology, Wang Zhen-Sheng, the CEO of Dalian Spark New Energy Development also spoke at a sub-conference to explain the current application and promotion of such technology. Sterling engine can be used in particular with concentrated solar energy as a heat source. In an interview with EnergyTrend, Mr. Wang revealed the company’s business planning for the near future. He said that the company was mainly in preparation for readiness of sterling engine technology in Q1 2011 and plans to examine the technology and start production in small quantities with a scheduled plan for capacity expansion to 30000 units in Q4 in the hope of promoting the technology to its potential markets. He said that after realization of mass production, the costs of manufacturing and power generating will be lower than those of PV and it will keep the carbon emissions the lowest possible. The company plans to sell the product to domestic and foreign customers and he actually believes that Chinese market will be larger.
According to official statistics, the exhibition attracted 51083 related professionals with 6000 foreign buyers. 63% of exhibitors obtained sales orders.