Singapore: Hanwha Solutions, the parent company of solar cell and module producer Hanwha Qcells, has revealed plans to stop its Chinese solar module production and sales to focus on the US market instead.
In a stock exchange filing, the group stated that shutting the Chinese subsidiary Hanwha Q CELLS (Qdong) Co. Ltd. is aimed at improving the company’s module production and operational efficiency.
Later, speaking with analysts the management reportedly said that the Chinese factory has around 2 GW annual module production capacity. It will stop the production here by June 30, 2024.
However, a media report claims the Chinese factory had an annual production capacity of 2.1 GW of solar cells and 2.3 GW of modules at the end of 2023. It supplied the same to South Korea, Japan and Europe among other regions.
Instead, the company plans to produce most of its modules in the US where the group expanded its annual module production capacity to exceed 5.1 GW in October 2023. It aims to build a vertically-integrated production capacity of 8.4 GW by 2024.
Hanwha’s decision to shut down its Chinese fab for the US market follows the announcement of it discontinuing the group’s South Korean factory.
In the US, it has joined the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee to demand the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) on solar products coming into the US market from Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. According to the petitioners, China-headquartered companies use their government-subsidized solar products to be assembled in these Southeast Asian nations to ship to the US in order to avoid paying import tariffs.
