From pv magazine Global
Chinese PV manufacturer Sunova Solar has unveiled a new 9 GW cell production facility in Yibin, China’s Sichuan province.
The factory, which was inaugurated at the start of this year, covers an area of 107,000 square meters, with 67,000 square meters taken up by a cell production workshop. It focuses on the production of 182 mm, 199 mm and 210 mm TOPCon cells.
The fully automated facility currently employs 560 people and 420 front-line workers in the workshop. The site features a 5G-automated guided vehicle (AGV) based transport system of mobile robots and is paired with a fifth-generation mobile network. Cell production is powered by a rooftop PV system and was designed with a concentrated water recycling system.
Sunova Sun is currently ramping up production to its final volume of 9 GW per year, which is equivalent to approximately 36,000 high-efficiency modules per day. It said cell quality is ensured through a range of different tests, such as color and appearance sorting, EL testing, and IV electrical performance tests, as well as additional reliability tests, including tension and light decay testing.
“Investing in our own cell manufacturing line is a key milestone in our long-term strategy and will decrease our dependency on other suppliers, thereby securing consistent quality cell input for our high efficiency modules,” said Sunova Solar Chairman Mike Song. “It enables us to serve our customers with advanced technology that we continuously develop.”
Sunova Solar currently operates three manufacturing factories in China and Vietnam. The company said that as of December 2023, it had shipped more than 4 GW of cumulative modules throughout the world.
Last year, Sunova Solar released a series of its n-type TOPCon solar modules, featuring bifacial dual-glass solar panels with power outputs ranging from 585 W to 605 W. Shortly after it was listed as a tier-1 module manufacturer by BloombergNEF, after completing eight projects of more than 1.5 MW with non-recourse financing from at least six different banks.
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