Switzerland-based heterojunction module manufacturer Meyer Burger has secured €125 million financing from a consortium led by German lender Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden. In addition, it has obtained €60 million with an, unnamed, German specialist bank for working capital financing. This means that a total of €185 million are available for expanding the company’s production capacity.
By the end of 2022, the company wants to increase its solar cell production capacity in Bitterfeld from 400 MW today to 1.4 GW. In Freiberg, a total module capacity of 1 GW is expected to be reached by the end of next year, from 400 MW. Both plants, in eastern Germany, went into operation only a few weeks ago.
In addition, Meyer Burger has announced that it will set up a second module production facility with an annual capacity of 400 MW at another unspecified location by the end of 2022. This manufacturing facility will be designed for the production of panels for large scale solar plants. However, the company emphasizes that it should have the flexibility to also produce modules for distributed generation in accordance with market demand. Meyer Burger plans to launch glass-film modules and bifacial, glass-glass modules with a module output of up to 570 W and an efficiency of up to 22.9%, in 2022.
For this module capacity, Meyer Burger needs all the solar cells it produces for itself and, as a result, it will no longer sell any of its heterojunction cells to other module manufacturers in the future. The company plans to increase both cell and module production capacity to 5 GW by 2026, and to 7 GW by 2027. This will also require the construction of new production sites.
*The headline of the article has been amended to reflect that the location of the new factory was not disclosed yet. In our previous title, we stated it is located in Germany.
