On the morning of May 28, the first batch of 210mm PERC cells rolled off the production line in Tongwei Solar’s new production base in Jintang County amidst a cheering crowd. Jintang County is in Sichuan Province, China. Tongwei is a major vertically integrated Chinese manufacturer of PV products. The company has three other production bases that are located in Hefei, Shuangliu, and Meishan. The Jingtang base, which is its newest manufacturing hub, has just completed phase 1 of its development.
The Jintang base broke ground on March 28, 2020, and equipment installation began on May 8 this year. With phase 1 of the base entering operation on May 31 this year, Tongwei has demonstrated an incredible speed in terms of capacity building and reached another milestone in the growth of its business operations. The Jingtang base also highlights the significant advances that Tongwei has made with respect to smart and digitalized manufacturing.
As an industrial investment project, the Jintang base is the largest of its kind in the county and a major one in the province. Tongwei will be investing a total of CNY 20 billion into the construction of the base. The planned production capacity of the base is projected to reach 30GW annually for high-efficiency PV cells and related products.
Tongwei said that phase 1 of the Jintang base is a modern, high-efficiency, and smart manufacturing plant that leverages the 5G network to optimize the production process for c-Si cells. The company added that the base is a pilot project for implementing 5G in the field of industrial internet; and hopefully, it will become a model for the integration of 5G and other advanced manufacturing technologies. Going forward, Tongwei will lead the charge in the adoption of related technologies so as to promote the development of smart factories, digitalized workshops, and smart logistics solutions. The goal is to ultimately achieve complete or almost full automation in the manufacturing and delivery of high-efficiency PV products. Tongwei also boasts that once the entire Jintang base goes online, it will be the world’s largest cell production site with the most intelligent equipment and the most advanced fabrication processes.
