Photovoltaics

China and Taiwan account for 74 per cent of the world's supply of PV modules and cells. But could Taiwan be upping its market share as it pushes for a new drive to supply overseas projects and a PV project awakening in its domestic market?

On August 10th Taiwan’s Arima Group officially opened its 3MW power plant in Taiwan’s Ping-tung County. Technically, Ping-tung has been connected to the Taiwanese grid and fully operational since early 2012.

Taipei-based Arima EcoEnergy, an HCPV solar farm turnkey solutions provider, claims it is Asia’s first fully operational solar farm using dual axis trackers. Dual-axis tracking systems generate more power than fixed arrays by continuously positioning the PV array (or the combined power of the linked PV modules) so that the incident angle of solar energy is 0°. Arima, established in 2007, manufactures HCPV modules, cells and tracker systems.

Cause for celebration

The opening of Arima’s Ping-tung project is good news for PV and solar energy in Taiwan and so was some cause for celebration within the domestic solar industry, but overall, the sector is not feeling as healthy as it has in the past.

Spot prices of PV products in Taiwan declined in July following a decline in demand growth, according to the Taiwanese technology market research firm Trendforce. Over the spring there was slight increase in prices and demand appeared relatively stable, at least as reported by several of the larger and more established Taiwanese PV firms including Neo Solar Power, Gintech and E-Ton Solar.

Trendforce believes that as long as demand in Europe remains stable: “Taiwan manufacturers won't see a huge reduction in sales.” And in some cases some manufacturers are expecting sales to rise. In the case of Taiwan-based thin film manufacturer, NexPower Technology, its US shipments are expected to rise even further than anticipated. It has recently reported that its 160W thin-film modules are now both UL and CEC registered. According to the company, its a-Si thin-film modules were initially installed for its Kansai, Japan project, which has already started construction.

Up to the half year mark in 2012, NexPower has reported that it has shipped over 10MW to the US. The majority of the orders were for a state of New Jersey utility project with the balance delivered for the residential rooftop market.

Eyes on export markets

According to Charles Chen, the company’s sales and marketing vice president, the UL and CEC registrations paired with a US-based conference presence, NexPower is confident the company will push the shipment record for America to a new record high in 2012.

However, this could be an isolated example and analysts are far from certain that PV and thin film sales will not drop. All eyes will be on Germany given its history as being an important European market for Taiwan’s PV industry.

If Berlin’s plans to cap installed capacity move ahead then this could be bad for the Taiwanese industry in the third and fourth quarters of the year. As well as Europe, many Taiwan firms also target the Japanese market due to historic trading relations – however, PV development has been relatively slow by international developed world standards in Japan while the Tokyo government is now talking about raising technology standards to slow international manufacturers' entry into its market. The standards are not necessarily an issue for Taiwan’s manufacturers, but margins will be eroded somewhat.

Homegrown potential

The Ping-tung project is a good example of how Taiwan is moving towards developing more PV tech in Taiwan. Ping-tung County is also the site of a unique Outdoor Aging Test Site, which has been granted Certification Body Testing Laboratory (CBTL) Certification granted and funded by Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, a non-profit R&D organization with close ties to the Taipei government).

The Site is designed to help domestic PV manufacturers improve the efficiency of their products. Also involved in the project are Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) and the National Ping-tung University of Science and Technology. ITRI’s President Mr Jyuo-Min Shyu explains that the major point of the Ping-tung site is to allow Taiwanese PV manufacturers to work closely with verification organizations in Germany, the US and Japan to gain rapid acceptance in those markets for their products.

Chinese market dominance

Exporting then is important for Taiwan’s PV industry. Yun-Ming Wang, the Deputy Director General of the island state’s Bureau of Energy, states that 95 per cent of domestic PV products are currently actively exported overseas. However, of course, the 400lb gorilla in the room of Taiwan’s PV sector is, as ever, mainland China and Beijing. China and Taiwan combined account for approximately 74 per cent of the world’s supply of PV modules and cells, according to the European Photonics Industry Consortium, and currently export 95 per cent of all the photovoltaic panels they produces.

Specialist German-based PV industry research company EuPD Research believes Taiwanese PV manufacturing comprises 13 per cent to 14 per cent of global production, with particular strengths lying in crystalline cell production. This represents about approximately EUR 6.12bn in sales.

The PRC has been the subject of much negative publicity for a combination of high subsidy by the Chinese state and alleged “dumping” of panels thereby combining to crash the global price.

However, Taiwan also subsidises exports and has also been accused of engaging in dumping of products on foreign markets at prices lower than prices charged on domestic markets. With many Taiwanese PV companies now having established mainland factories, and vice versa in a few cases, the lines between the PRC and ROC PV industries are becoming increasingly blurred to international eyes.

International aspirations remain strong

But the recent developments in Ping-tung was mostly about domestic PV installations and there Taiwan has a lot of potential capacity – the island has cumulative installations of just over 22 megawatts (MW). By contrast in 2011, China installed 2,200 MW and cumulative capacity reached 3,093 MW. Of course this still trails the EU with 51,000 MW of installed capacity.

Put simply, Taiwan has been making modules and cells, but exporting and not installing. And exporting seems to be the focus – a round robin email of eight major solar manufacturers in Taiwan last week found all of them positioning for export drives – Japan, India and, of course, mainland China were the key target markets.