Powerway PV SA and Sungrow will be opening a manufacturing facility in COEGA, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Once finished, the plant will be the largest of its kind outside China.
Powerway PV SA is a part of Powerway Renewable Energy Co. Ltd, a solar farm builder and system integrator. Sungrow is the largest solar/wind inverter manufacturer and supplier in Asia. The plant in South Africa will combine the two companies’ resources and technical expertise to create a local supplier capable of providing local content to the fastest growing renewable energy sector (i.e. solar) as well as allowing for superior technical skills to be developed and incubated.
This partnership between Powerway and Sungrow means that the plant will be able to operate at full capacity in the first year of set up (being the middle to end of 2014), utilizing the pipeline of work that Powerway PV SA has secured in its short period in the country. The skills and expertise that will be brought into the country will create jobs in various levels of skill including a large portion of jobs for the unskilled population of South Africa. Plans are in place for apprenticeships and on the job training for the youth, and tertiary qualified engineers and electricians, with exchange programs to the phenomenal Sungrow manufacturing facility in Hefei, China.
“Unlike other manufactured inputs into the solar renewable energy space, the inverter component is heavily reliable on technology and development,” said Mr. Benson Wu, CEO of Powerway Group. “The advantages of a global player in Sungrow are thus apparent and will nicely place the local Powerway group in a position to roll out beyond the traditional IPP space into the lucrative and fast growing roof top solar power generation market.”
“South Africa is one of the countries that enjoys the best irradiation resource in the world, Sungrow is proud to team up with Powerway to exploit the business opportunity in South Africa, and then to African continent. This is within our global business strategy as to extend our business map to African countries,” indicated Mr. Cao, CEO of Sungrow.