Chinese PV product manufacturer HuaSun Energy has entered into an agreement that will lead to the construction of a manufacturing base for HJT products in the National Xishan Economic & Technological Development Zone. The development zone is near Wuxi, a city in China’s Jiangsu Province. The agreement was formally signed on January 25. This story was first reported by local Chinese news outlets.

According to the publicly available information, the manufacturing base will span an area of 430 mu. It will comprise a cell factory, a module factory, a wafer slicing factory, and an R&D center. The base will have an annual production capacity of 5GW, and the products that it will be supplying are modules featuring bifacial microcrystalline HJT cells.

HuaSun stated that it will investing a total of RMB 5.7 billion into this project, which will be developed in multiple phases. Once completed and in operation, the base is expected to contribute to the formation of an industry cluster in the development zone. The activities within the base will also attract other companies working in the middle and downstream sections of the PV supply chain to set up shop nearby. The facilities that will be completed in the first two phases of the development are projected to generate an annual revenue of more than RMB 10 billion.

HuaSun’s HJT cells underwent performance testing at ISFH last year, and the result revealed a conversion efficiency rate exceeding 25%. According to the previous statements made by the company and the related reporting by other renewable energy news websites, there are now attempts to replace the layer of amorphous silicon that is mainstream in the design of an HJT cell with a layer of microcrystalline silicon. Depositing a microcrystalline silicon layer instead of an amorphous silicon layer offers advantages such as a higher level of light transmittance and a lower level of resistance.