Trina moves to buy 72,000 tons of Tongwei polysilicon for 210mm operation

Having recently signed big silicon wafer and photovoltaic glass procurement deals, Chinese PV manufacturer Trina Solar today announced plans for a minority stake in two joint ventures (JVs) with domestic rival Tongwei Solar.

Changzhou-based Trina said it would pay $32 million of a total investment worth $2.3 billion into two tie-ups with Tongwei, and would hold 35% stakes in each new entity.

The solar manufacturer, which is focusing its efforts on 210mm wafer-based solar products alongside Tongwei, said it would establish a project company JV with Tongwei-owned polysilicon manufacturer Sichuan Yongxiang Co Ltd and would also establish a new solar manufacturing operation through a JV with Tongwei Solar.

The latter operation, according to Trina, would have an annual production capacity of 40,000 tons of high-purity crystalline silicon and be able to produce 15 GW per year each of silicon ingots, wafers and cells.

In polysilicon procurement terms, Trina said it “intends to purchase Tongwei’s Sichuan Yongxiang Polysilicon Co Ltd; Sichuan Yongxiang New Energy Co Ltd; Inner Mongolia Tongwei High Purity Crystal Silicon Co Ltd; and Yunnan Tongwei High Purity Crystal Silicon Co Ltd between January 2021 and December 2023, for approximately 72,000 tons of polysilicon products in total.”

pv magazine has contacted Trina Solar to confirm the company intends to acquire the Tongwei businesses named by 2024, or whether the announcement relates only to an agreement to purchase polysilicon from those entities. The former arrangement could also bring Longi into the equation, with Tongwei having last year agreed to swap 30% of its Inner Mongolia silicon business for the same slice of Longi’s monocrystalline wafer fab in Ningxia.

Trina said it wants to reach 50 GW of annual solar module manufacturing capacity next year, with most of it dedicated to 210mm-wafer based products.