Solar Power News

Yingli Solar Gets $5.3 Billion to Bulk up Manufacturing

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In a move that could double global manufacturing capacity, the Chinese government has agreed to loan Yingli Green Energy Holdings 36 billion yuan ($5.3 billion) to expand its manufacturing operations. The money will be channeled through the China Development Bank, a wholly government-owned lender. The bank also forked out $30 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) to Trina Solar, another growing Chinese solar company.

 

Yingli Green Energy Holdings, which owns the Yingli Solar brand, is one of the world’s largest vertically integrated solar firms. The two loans to Yingli and Trina Solar could have an unparalleled impact on the global solar industry.

“The loans are enough to increase the world’s solar wafer and cell capacity by 100 percent,” Jenny Chase, head of solar-energy analysis for New Energy Finance in London, told Business Week. “It will allow the Chinese companies to deliver unprecedented economies of scale.”

China is already the world’s leading producer of solar panels, and these loans will only serve to embolden that position.

Yingli separately announced that it has started construction of a new solar panel manufacturing plant able to produce up to 400 megawatts-worth of solar panels per year. By the end of the third quarter this fiscal year, Yingli expects to have 1 gigawatt of production capacity online. The $5.3 billion from China Development Bank could increase that to 5 GW.

Perhaps Yingli saw this coming when they paid up to $20 million to line the World Cup fields with massive digital advertisements.

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