Sharp pledges massive increase in solar cell production

Japanese electronics giant Sharp has underlined its commitment to the burgeoning solar panel market, announcing it is to increase production at its main thin-film solar cell plant by more than 10-fold and unveiling plans for a major solar panel manufacturing facility.

The company said it would increase capacity at its existing thin film solar cell manufacturing plant in Katsuragi from its current level of 15MW to 160MW per year by October 2008.

The announcement came as Sharp this weekend held the groundbreaking ceremony for its new "manufacturing complex for the 21st Century" in Sakai City, which will include a new solar cell plant that the company claims will be capable of producing 1,000MW of thin-film solar cell capacity a year when it opens in 2010.

Sharp is now inviting related material and equipment manufacturers to also locate their plants on the site as it seeks to more tightly integrate its supply chain. The company said the move would allow "Sharp engineers to work closely with their counterparts in leading material and equipment manufacturers, thus giving rise to new technical innovations through shared knowledge and expertise ".

The company said its investment in new solar cell capacity was in response to growing demand from Europe. "The feed-in tariff system which began in Germany is now spreading to neighbouring countries, including Spain and Italy, and demand for thin-film solar cells in Europe continues to expand, in particular because of their outstanding temperature characteristics," Sharp claimed in a statement.

Sharp has invested heavily in thin-film solar cells, which are fabricated by depositing thin layers of silicon on a glass substrate, and is confident the technology has many advantages over conventional crystalline solar cells.

The company said that thin-film cells were not only cheaper and quicker to manufacture, but they also have the potential to be more easily placed on buildings walls, while new "see-through" cells could even be employed as windows.

In related news, the consolidation of the US solar panel market took another turn last week, as thin-film solar cell specialist First Solar announced it was to shell out $34.3m in stocks and cash to acquire Turner Renewable Energy, the company behind solar project specialist DT Solar.

First Solar said that DT Solar, which claims to have designed and deployed commercial solar projects for a number of utilities and Fortune 500 firms, would be rebranded as First Solar Electric and would operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of the new parent firm.