AUO snips PV solar cell plant plan

TAIPEI: AU Optronics will not be continuing with their plans to construct a PV solar cell plant in Changhua, Central Taiwan. The plans have been terminated due to environment assessment issues that have been brought forth by Taipei's High Administrative Court. The plant was to have an annual capacity of 2GWp, and the original plan was to dedicate a part of the facility's capacity to manufacture bifacial interdigitated back-contact solar cells, which were developed by US-based Sunpower.

In May there was an announcement from AUO and Sunpower about their plans to jointly establish a high-efficiency solar cell plant in Malaysia. According to reports, a team from AUO is already stationed at Sunpower's US headquarters to learn back-contact solar cell technology.

Sources say that the factory at Changhua had planned to assign 1GWp capacity each for the production of poly-Si and mono-Si solar cells. This could have ensured that AUO’s place in Taiwan’s solar sector would be notable, due to the manufacturing capability they would have, especially for high-efficiency back-contact cell technology. AUO could have come to be in the same league as Motech Industries, Gintech Energy and Neo Solar Power, and would perhaps have provided healthy competition to motivate advancements in production and cell efficiency.

The sources also point out that at this point of time; none of Taiwan's first-tier solar cell makers has the capability to make high-efficiency cells of Sunpower's caliber.