PHOTON International The Photovoltaic Magazine

Sanyo to expand production capacity to 158 MW
in 2005

Japan's Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. is planning to increase cell production capacity to 158 MW after a late-May decision to bump up capacity of its Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin Layer (HIT) technology at its subsidiary, Shimane Sanyo Industrial Co., from 30 to 50 MW.

	© Sanyo Electric Co.
Sanyo plans to increase production for domestic shipments from 29 to 55 MW in 2004. Pictured here, a Sanyo PV system on a Japanese house.

Toshiya Tanaka, manager of Sanyo's solar planning business, says the ramp-up should start in August and be completed by March 2005. This comes on top of a Feb. 2004 announcement by Sanyo of plans to increase HIT cell capacity at its Nishikinohama facility from 33 to 103 MW by Jan. 2005.

Sanyo also has a 5 MW capacity a-Si production line at its subsidiary, Kanto Sanyo Semiconductors Co. Ltd., mainly for the solar watch market. Tanaka says Sanyo will increase capacity to 7 MW sometime after 2005.

The effects of the capacity-building on production, however, won't be felt until next year. The 68 MW capacity in 2003 is expected to remain the same for 2004, says Tanaka. Sanyo, which produced 35 MW in 2003, dropping from fifth to eighth place in PHOTON International's worldwide cell survey (see PI 3/2004, p. 46), expects to produce up to full capacity this year.

Tanaka declined to give details about production at Sanyo's 10 MW capacity module factory in Mexico (see PI 1/2003, p. 19), saying only that Sanyo did not start operations there until Aug. 2003, since it was preoccupied with the Japanese market. Tanaka, who says module assembly in other countries is »under examination,« expects production in Mexico to be near full capacity in 2004.