The new plant will be located in the Caohejing Tech Park, in Shanghai. Production is scheduled to begin in 2008, with a peak production of 50 MW expected for 2009.
Suntech's thin film modules are produced by laying thin films of amorphous and microcrystaline silicon on top of a glass surface. This produce uses less than 2% of the silicon used by traditional polysilicon cells. The modules produced will be extra large, with an estimated size close to 6 square meters, "thus reducing the cost balance for each system", according to Suntech.
The company has stated that the modules will have an efficiency between 6% and 9%, and production costs around $1.20/W initially, although these are expected to drop with economies of scale as production increases.
For additional information:
www.suntech-power.com
