Panasonic has reported the plan of forming a company in Malaysia, which will be the new base for the solar manufacturing of the company. It has planned to establish Panasonic Energy Malaysia during December 2011 and the new company will operate a solar manufacturing unit, which is vertically-integratated, for making solar cells and modules from wafers.
The company will spend 45 B yen for the facility that will commence the production during December 2012, with 300 MW as the yearly production capacity.
It is expected that the solar cell market will expand additionally, with the increasing ecological understanding in the world and opening of Feed-in Tariff schemes and subsidy systems in Japan and other countries. In particular, strong demand is likely to occur in the residential area, which is the key target for the heterojunction with intrinsic thin-layer (HIT) solar modules of Panasonic. The new solar manufacturing factory, which is to be constructed in Kulim Hi-Tech Park of Kedah, will support the company to meet the rising demand and reinforce the cost competitiveness for the HIT module with vertically-integrated production.
The company will sell the solar modules as the system’s part along with the storage batteries and as a separate product. It will speed up the expansion of the solar business worldwide, as a part of the complete solutions business that is built on potential made across the Panasonic companies.
Source: http://panasonic.net/