On November 17, 2020, Trina Solar Co., Ltd. announced that its cooperation with Tongwei Co., Ltd. has reached a new level. The cooperation involves three investments and a long term procurement cooperation framework agreement. Gao Jifan, Chairman of Trina Solar, said that the two leading companies focused on 210 products and cooperated to make the 210 industrial ecosystem stronger and bigger. Joint ventures and cooperation among strong players, who complements each other, have bigger advantages than simple vertical integrations within themselves.
In terms of investments, Trina Solar signed a "joint venture agreement" with Tongwei's Sichuan Yongxiang Co., Ltd. and Tongwei Solar Co., Ltd. respectively, to jointly establish a project company and jointly invest in a high-purity crystalline silicon project with an annual output of 40,000 tons, a ingot project of an annual output of 15GW, a wafer cutting project of an annual output of 15GW, and a high-efficiency crystalline silicon cell project with an annual output of 15GW. The total investment is about 2.3 billion US dollar. Trina Solar's shareholding ratio in each project company is 35%.
Wu Qun, secretary of the board of directors of Trina Solar, said that these major project investments were part of Trina Solar’s strategic development plan. Trina Solar and Tongwei both have outstanding advantages in their roles for the industrial chain. They have reached the consensus on 210 series modules, and these cooperations will further strengthen their strategic partnership. Through joint efforts of all industry partners, the 210 product industry chain has matured, which is now more conducive for deeper integration. Trina Solar plans for a production capacity of photovoltaic module to be no less than 50GW by the end of 2021, most of which are 210 module production capacities. In the future, the company will continue to strengthen its scale advantages of advanced module production capacity based on large-size cells.
In terms of procurements, Trina Solar intends to purchase Tongwei’s Sichuan Yongxiang Polysilicon Co., Ltd., Sichuan Yongxiang New Energy Co., Ltd., Inner Mongolia Tongwei High Purity Crystal Silicon Co., Ltd., and Yunnan Tongwei High Purity Crystal Silicon Co., Ltd. between January 2021 and December 2023 for approximately 72,000 tons of polysilicon products in total.
Ms. Chen Ye, Assistant Vice President of Procurement Supply Chain Management of Trina Solar, said that Trina Solar and Tongwei had a good relationship and Trina Solar was very pleased to deepen cooperation with its strategic partners. This long term procurement will facilitate timely and effective responses to changes in the market, ensuring strong and long-term stability of the company's supply chain. On the 2nd of this month, we signed a 20GW silicon wafer procurement contract with Wuxi Shangji Automation Co., Ltd. On the 15th, we signed an 85 million square meter photovoltaic glass procurement contract with Changzhou Almaden Co., Ltd. These long term procurements will provide strong support for the production capacity of Vertex Series 210 ultra-high-power modules.