TSEC Corp. launched its new PV module plant in Taching Industiral Zone in Pingtung County, southern Taiwan, on April 30, posing as Taiwan's largest such plant so far.

During the inauguration ceremony, Lai Kuo-jung, chairman of TSEC and the Taiwan Photovoltaic Industry Association, put forth five suggestions on the development of renewable energy, in front of Premier Lai Ching-te, who attended the ceremony.

Lai stressed that PV power module plant is an intermediary platform in the PV industrial chain, receiving upstream products, including silicon materials, chips, and PV cells, on one hand, and supporting the construction and operation of downstream PV power systems, on the other. In response to the government's renewable-energy policy, TSEC decided, at the invitation of Pingtung county chief Pan Meng-an, to build the new-generation large-scale PV power module plant, according to Lai.

Liao urged the government to open up idled or abandoned farmland for the installation of PV power stations, in order to achieve the target of 20 GW PV power capacity, encourage investment in renewable energy with tax incentives, stabilize wholesale rates for the purchase of renewable energy and push renewable-energy certificate system, solve the problem of the shortage of power-transmission feed lines, and stop dumping by foreign PV cells and modules in Taiwan. 

Located on a plot spanning 14,342 pings (one ping equals 36 square feet) in space, which the company purchased at the end of 2016, the plant will be built in two stages. The just inaugurated facility belongs to the first stage, with a plant boasting annual capacity of 1 GW and completed 500 MW production line, on a 7,000-ping plot. In the second stage, capacity of the plant will be expanded to 2-3 GW, in line with the development of domestic demands. The completed plant is highly automated, capable of turning out a number of new products, including "half-cut," "double-glass," "bifacial," "stacked" ones.

(First photo courtesy of Pixabay)