Shangji Automation has announced plans to invest 5 billion yuan ($726 million) in a new 16 GW factory. Commercial production is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2023.
The first phase of the project will deploy 5 GW of panel capacity at a cost of 1.1 billion yuan. Manufacturing operations at the new factory are expected to start in the third quarter of this year. The new plant will be built in the Jiangyin Lingang Economic Development Zone in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province.
Shangji Automation’s initial revenue was 800 million yuan in 2019. After investments in monocrystalline wafer and solar cell production, its revenue in 2021 was 10.9 billion yuan. By the end of 2022, the company had reached a production capacity of 40 GW for wafers and 24 GW for solar cells.
In March 2022, Shangji announced plans to invest 11.8 billion yuan in a silicon production base with an annual capacity of 150,000 metric tons (MT) of silicon metal and 100,000 tons of polysilicon. In August, the company decided to invest another 15 billion yuan in 25 GW of wafer cutting capacity and 24 GW of solar cell capacity.
