Jetion starts building 5 GW heterojunction solar module factory

Chinese panel maker Jetion Solar, a unit of China National Building Materials (CNBM), has started building a 5 GW factory to produce heterojunction (HJT) panels in Jiangyin, in China’s Jiangsu province.

Jetion Solar is developing the facility in partnership with German module manufacturer Avancis. The first phase of the construction will require an investment of CNY 1.8 billion. It should be completed in April, with commercial operations scheduled to start in August.

“The HJT technology is nothing new, with Sanyo and then Panasonic having developed and produced the high-efficiency technology over decades,” said Jetion Solar CTO Ewain Guo in August 2021, when the project was first announced. “However, it has remained a high-performance and high-cost product, which limits its mass market penetration. Given the Chinese PV industry’s historic ability to aggressively drive down costs, let’s just wait and see.”

Jetion Solar currently has a production capacity of 2.5 GW for PV modules and 2 GW for solar cells. Last year, it started running a new 1 GW mono PERC cell fab in Tongcheng, in China’s Anhui province.

CNBM also operates CIGS production facilities at four different locations, including one in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province. The group was the first of several companies to introduce large-scale CIGS production in China.