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Solland Solar is the new Dutch PV cell manufacturer opening a new production facility next month. Since the Dutch market has lost its incentives and is really quiet, we are assuming that most cells will be exported. Can you tell us something about the expected production, capacity and customers?
Solland Solar is a new German-Dutch company, the first company in the world with a production at the border of two countries. Our new building became available in mid 2005 and the utilities and production machines were installed in August/September. The first cell was produced in September.
Our first production line has a capacity of 20 MWp/yr; more lines are being planned. All production (up to 50 MWp/a) is sold to Econcern and Solon.
What will be the product focus of Solland Solar?
Solland will produce cells and cells only. Initially standard cells, but by mid 2006 we plan to produce BSC cells as well. Solland offers cell manufacturing technology and module manufacturing support to strategic partners.
SolarPlaza did market research about the solar grade silicon supply chain. It seems that the majority of cell manufacturers worldwide have adopted silicon monocrystalline technology. According to our information your PUM cells are based on polycrystalline technology. What will be the advantages of your technology?
The BSC (PUM) cell has 6-8 % relative higher efficiency than standard polycrystalline cells. Furthermore, Solland can also produce monocrystalline solar cells.
SolarPlaza has already found 68 active PV cell manufacturers worldwide. Do you think further consolidation is likely to happen? And what will be the growth strategy of Solland Solar?
Our ambitious growth plans will depend on wafer availability….
These days everybody is looking at the rapidly growing Chinese cell and module production capacity. How will Solland Solar compete with new Chinese cell manufacturers?
Our production process is fully automated and labour costs are low. We are very confident that we will be able to compete globally with our automated systems and high efficiency cells .
You are also the chairman of Holland Solar, the Dutch solar PV association. Are discussions with the government still ongoing and do you expect new incentives for 2006?
The Dutch Government is currently encountering major difficulties on how to handle the renewables portfolio. Subsidies for wind and biomass projects are being discussed, implemented and stopped. The same happened with solar projects.
The debate on nuclear has even been reopened. It is still unclear what will happen….
Thank you for the interview and good luck with your new production facility!
