South Korea began to actively promote the well-known manufacturers of mass production of solar cells. South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries (HyundaiHeavy Industries Co., Ltd.) 2011 annual production scale will be expanded to an annual output of 600MW, 2012 will be expanded to an annual output of 1GW. Including South Korea’s Samsung Electronics (Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd.) Plans, including the Samsung Group in 2020 prior to the solar cell business has invested about 420 billion yen, the whole group the size of the total production number of GW modules. The group also recently built in the polycrystalline silicon solar cell production and sales of the internal supply chain.
However, the production scale of South Korean firms and the performance of solar cell modules and the world’s top companies still pales in comparison. United States and China have reached an annual output of 1GW of several large-scale manufacturers. Conversion efficiency, Samsung’s silicon and thin film silicon hybrid unit is 19%, 18% for silicon-based cells, thin film CIGS-based unit of compound classes is 11%. Also lower than the level of the world’s top 3 to 4 percentage points.
On the other hand, South Korean companies in the automotive and thin panel TV show strong field sales force in the field of solar cells also play a role in the business. For example, in solar power generation business in the United States Matinee energy company plans to scale of the southwestern United States to import 900MW solar power plant, to obtain the first order is the Modern and the South Korean LG Electronics (LGElectronics, Inc.). Under the contract, the modern end of 2012 in Arizona and other places, including construction of 150MW rated power facilities in the world, including the largest-scale solar power plants totaling 175MW.
Although Japanese manufacturers is technically slightly better, but lost in the sale of capacity and eventually technology will also be catching up - a familiar situation in the field of solar cells may also be repeated.
