A subsidiary of Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd (Aiko Solar) announced to invest RMB 6 billion in the construction of 2.65GW PV cell capacity, which has officially begun. This project scale will ultimately reach 8GW and will be mainly for high-efficiency products.

This subsidiary set up in Yiwu, China is a wholly-owned subsidiary that Aiko Solar. Aiko Solar broke the news of high-efficiency PV cell capacity investment plan during the SNEC 2017 expo. This factory locates in Zhejiang's Yiwu informational and optoelectronic industrial park (Yiwu economic development area). Its production lines will adopt artificial intelligence's neural network concept, so that yield rates and production quality will be improved comprehensively.

That factory occupies 350 square acre. Investment duration will last for five years while construction will be divided by three phases. During each phase, RMB 2 billion will be invested.

The first phase's project will build 2.65 GW high-efficiency PV cell capacity. The capacity is scheduled to begin mass production phase by the end of September 2017, and is estimated to generate RMB 3.5 billion revenues and the firm will pay above RMB 100 million tax. During the phase two and three, 2GW PV cell capacity will also be constructed, respectively. After entire project is finished, total newly-added PV cell capacity will amount to 8GW, and annual revenue might reach RMB 15 billion, its tax could surpass 600 million, and 4,500 jobs will be created.

Aiko Solar expressed, its high-efficiency PERC PV cell conversion efficiency exceeds 21%, with LID-resistant and anti-PID features. High-efficiency bifacial PV cells’ conversion efficiency of the front side exceeds 21%, and of backside surpasses 15%. The higher conversion efficiency spells higher PV power generation on the system-end, and high power generation means grid parity stage can be achieved earlier.

 “Aiko Solar will center on high-efficiency P-type mono PERC bifacial cell in the future,” explained Kenny Ko, an analyst of EnergyTrend, a division of TrendForce Corp. “PERC bifacial cell's backside will be changed from an entire Aluminium layer to a busbar-printed surface so that it will be only partially covered by conductive pastes. In this way, incident light can enter the cell from the backside through the unblocked light-transmitting area.”

Bifacial power generation function might effectively elevate the total power output.

Aiko Solar was established in November 2009, and mostly researches, manufactures, sells and provides services of crystal silicon PV cells. Aiko Solar was the first crystal silicon PV cell company that hit the mass production phase. Its current capacity comes to about 1.5GW. Aiko Solar's annual revenue in 2016 accounted for RMB 1.6 billion.

(Reported by Rhea Tsao, chief editor of EnergyTrend; translated by Janet Chen, a translator at TrendForce Corp.)