PHOTON International The Photovoltaic Magazine

Sharp reaches 400 MW solar cell production capacity

In January, electronics company Sharp began operation of two new cell lines at its production site in Katsuragi, Japan, thereby increasing annual capacity from 315 to 400 MW.

	© Michael Hughes for photon-pictures.com
»Our mission is to protect the world from the CO₂-Terminator,« explained Sharp Solar boss Takashi Tomita at the Solar Power 2004 conference in October in San Francisco. The new solar cell production lines should contribute to that cause.

At the same time, Sharp has set a goal of becoming a »zero global warming impact company« – in other words, eliminating the same volume of greenhouse gases (by using ecological products) as the company emits worldwide.

In its Dec. 15 announcement, Sharp said that investment costs for the expansion amounted to ¥5 billion ($48.9 million). Sharp claims that the new lines can process silicon wafers with a thickness of just 180 µm. Until now Sharp's lower limit was 200 µm, which was already significantly better than the typical 270 µm thickness. It remains, however, unclear what percentage of production these thin cells will make up.

The expansion brings Sharp's total number of lines to 10 in Katsuragi (which until recently was known as the autonomous town district Shinjo). Last March, Sharp had originally reported for PHOTON International's annual cell survey plans to increase capacity only from 248 MW in Nov. 2003 to around 300 MW by the end of 2004 (see PI 3/2004, p. 46), but apparently the strong market demand had convinced the company to accelerate expansion.

About two years ago, Sharp's capacity was half of what it is today, but the company, which is the world's largest cell manufacturer since the year 2000 (see PI 3/2003, p. 32), has been growing faster than the market average, thereby increasing its share from 17.5 percent in 2000 to 26.4 percent in 2003. And if the market should have grown as forecasted to around 1.1 GW in 2004 and Sharp – as Takashi Tomita, the head of Sharp's solar unit announced at the Solar Power Conference in San Francisco last October – should have produced 315 MW in 2004, the company's share would have increased to over 28 percent.