Chinese Government Pushing For Major Consolidation Of Solar PV Manufacturing Companies
The Chinese government — through the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology — is now pushing even harder than before for a “major” consolidation of the country’s solar PV manufacturing industry, as per recent reports.
The calls for consolidation are accompanied by new government guidelines regarding industry consolidation — at the heart of these new guidelines is the number of “sustainably operating” companies that the government wishes to see the industry consolidated into by the end of 2017.
That number, to be precise, is 10 — 10 “major” PV manufacturers supplying 70–80% of domestic demand by the beginning of 2018. Which ten companies the Ministry wants is of course unstated (publicly anyways).
The idea is for these 10 consolidated super-companies to form the heart of the solar PV industry in the country. Interestingly, these companies will receive notable governmental support — including a variety of different types of support across the “federal,” state, and regional levels.
As far as the specific polysilicon sector goes, the Ministry is looking for ~5 producers to be providing ~80% of domestic production by the end of 2017. Given the huge number of polysilicon producers operating in China before the price collapse, that number represents an incredible decline in numbers.
Of these unnamed “5 producers,” it seems that two are very likely to be GCL-Poly, and Daqo New Energy — both of which have been increasing their production numbers recently.
As part of the information accompanying the new guidelines, the Ministry also noted, in some detail, some of the “problems” that have held up the process of consolidation in the past — as well as outlining the broad variety of support available to those participating in said processes now.
Image Credit: Public Domain
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