Dec 16 2009
Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited (NYSE: YGE) ("Yingli Green Energy" or the "Company"), one of the world's leading vertically integrated photovoltaic ("PV") product manufacturers, today announced that it has successfully commenced trial production and reached certain key technology and operating milestones at Fine Silicon Co., Ltd. ("Fine Silicon"), its in-house polysilicon manufacturing facility with an annual production capacity of 3,000 metric tons ("MT"). The Company also announced that its total output of PV modules has reached 1 GW since the Company began commercial production in 2002.
Commences Trial Production and Reaches Key Technology and Operating Milestones at In-house Polysilicon Manufacturing Facility
Yingli Green Energy announced its in-house polysilicon manufacturing facility, Fine Silicon, has commenced trial production and reached certain key technology and operating milestones. Designed to have an annual production capacity of 3,000 MT, the Baoding-based facility is expected to reach full production volume in late 2010. With state-of-the-art facilities and advanced monosilane-based polysilicon manufacturing technology, Fine Silicon is expected to be capable of producing high quality solar-grade and electronic-grade polysilicon through energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes. Compared with the trichlorosilane ("TCS")-based polysilicon manufacturing technology, the advantages of the technology that Fine Silicon has adopted include significant electricity savings and low environmental impact. Fine Silicon's process utilizes no chlorides or TCS, and sulfate, its by-product, is easily treated.
"With Fine Silicon on-line, Yingli Green Energy will join a limited number of global PV manufacturers with fully vertically integrated business models covering the manufacturing process from polysilicon to PV modules," Mr. Liansheng Miao, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Yingli Green Energy, commented. "As one of the world's leading vertically integrated PV product manufacturers we look forward to further improving our cost structure, enhancing our operating performance and increasing our flexibility as we expand our global footprint."
Mr. Miao also noted that Yingli Green Energy completed the construction of Fine Silicon in less than two years.
Accumulated Output of PV Modules Hits 1 GW
Yingli Green Energy also announced that since the Company began commercial production in 2002, it has produced a total of 1 GW of PV modules under the "Yingli Solar" brand.
Through a series of expansions, the Company has increased its annual production capacity for each of polysilicon ingots and wafers, PV cells and PV modules to 600 MW as of September 2009, up from an initial 3 MW in 2002. Annual shipments of PV modules increased from 4.7 MW in 2004 to 282 MW in 2008, and are expected to be between 490 MW and 500 MW for 2009, resulting from high product quality, extensive international sales channels and a well-recognized brand. In total, 1 GW of PV modules has an annual power output of over 1 billion kilowatt hours, which corresponds to displacement of approximately 1,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. In addition, Yingli Green Energy has created nearly 6,000 jobs across various areas of its business.
Mr. Miao noted that as shipment volume of "Yingli Solar" PV modules keeps growing, Yingli Green Energy's PV technology has made significant advances, and the technical improvements resulting from the Company's research and development efforts have been instrumental in significantly reducing its manufacturing costs and improving the performance of its products.