It’s bad news for solar companies but good news for consumers. The international solar power industry is expected to take a bit of a blow with Tawainese company, Foxconn Technology Group, recently deciding to start making solar power modules. The company is the biggest contract maker of electronics, including Apple’s iPhone. It has started work on a solar-module plant in China’s province of Jiangsu, near the headquarters of Suntech Power Holdings Co., the world’s largest manufacturer of silicon-based modules.
Jenny Chase, a solar power analyst from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, states, ‘Foxconn plans to build new factories with undreamed-of scale and lower cost … it will push capacity higher and prices lower’. Other analysts predict the new solar power player will make competition ‘fiercer’ and drive margins down lower.
Trial production will begin in May 2012, and the plant will manufacture solar cells. The average price for solar modules has declined 47 per cent this year, to $0.94 per watt, and many of the world’s biggest solar power companies have filed for bankruptcy, not being able to keep up with the increase in solar power competition and resulting cheaper prices.
