Friday, November 25, 2011

Panasonic to invest RM1.86b in solar manufacturing plant

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 25): Panasonic Corporation will invest 45 billion yen (RM1.86 billion) in a plant in Malaysia which will be the Japanese Corp's new solar manufacturing base.

The Osaka-based company said the unit -- Panasonic Energy Malaysia Sdn Bhd - to be set up in December 2011, will operate a vertically-integrated solar manufacturing facility producing from wafers to cells and modules.

'Panasonic will invest 45 billion yen in the facility, which will start operation in December 2012 with an annual production capacity of 300 MW,' it said.

The paid-up of the company will be 22.5 billion yen and it will be unit of Panasonic Corp. Production is scheduled to start in December 2012.

Panasonic said with environmental awareness increasing globally and introduction of subsidy systems and feed-in tariff schemes in Japan as well as other countries, etc., the solar cell market is predicted to grow further.

'Robust demand is expected particularly in the residential sector, the main target of the Panasonic hetero-junction with intrinsic thin-layer (HIT) solar modules.

The new factory, to be built in the Kulim Hi-Tech Park in Kedah, will not only help Panasonic meet this growing demand, but also strengthen the HIT module's cost-competitiveness with the vertically-integrated production.

According to Panasonic, it will sell its solar modules as an individual product as well as part of a system combined with storage batteries.

'As part of the comprehensive solutions business, which is built on capacities brought together across the Panasonic group companies, Panasonic will accelerate its solar business development globally,' it said.

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