Hanwha Qcells (commonly known as simply Qcells) is a major manufacturer of photovoltaic cells. The company is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, after being founded in 1999 in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany, where the company still has its engineering offices. Qcells was purchased out of bankruptcy in August 2012 by the Hanwha Group, a South Korean business conglomerate. Qcells now operates as a subsidiary of Hanwha Solutions, the group's energy and petrochemical company.
On 23 July 2001,the company produced its first working polycrystalline solar cell on its new production line in Thalheim. Qcells would grow to become one of the world's largest solar cell manufacturers,employing over 2,000 people and encouraging other companies to open facilities in the surrounding area,which would come to be known as Germany's "Solar Valley."[1][2]
The company went public on 5 October 5,2005,listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. High share prices during the initial public offering poured money into the company and made the founders wealthy. Lemoine died in 2006,and shortly thereafter,Fest and Grunow left the company to go back into research. Only Milner remained and served as the company's CEO.[1]
In 2005,Qcells established the CdTe PV manufacturer Calyxo. In November 2007,Qcells agreed a deal with Solar Fields,which intellectual property and assets were merged into Calyxo's newly established subsidiary Calyxo USA.[3][4] In 2011,Solar Fields took over Calyxo.[5]
In 2008,Qcells acquired 17.9% stake in Renewable Energy Corporation.[6] This stake was sold in 2009.[7] At the same year,Qcells' subsidiary Sontor merged with a thin-film company Solarfilm.[8]
In June 2009,the company acquired Solibro,a joint venture it had established in 2006.[9] Solibro manufactured thin-film solar cells based on copper-indium-gallium-diselenide. These modules were marketed until the sale of Solibro to Hanergy in 2012.[10]
Qcells was hit hard by the Great Recession in late 2008,with share prices slipping from over 80 euros to under 20. In response,the company laid off 500 employees. Milner resigned as CEO in early 2010,and by the end of the year,the company's finances appeared to stabilize. Just a few months later,in 2011,the global solar cell market crashed,with production overcapacity driving prices extremely low. Qcells saw sales slide by around 1billion euros,ran a loss of 846 million euros and on 3 April 2011,the company filed for bankruptcy.
In August 2012,the Hanwha Group,a large South Korean business conglomerate,agreed to acquire Qcells,saying that it presented synergy opportunities.[11] In 2010,[12] Hanwha had purchased a 49.99%[13] share in Chinese manufacturer Solarfun which had been renamed Hanwha SolarOne. SolarOne had been producing solar cells for Qcells under contract.[13] Due to high costs,production in Germany ceased in 2015,with Hanwha moving the work to its SolarOne facilities in China and newly opened manufacturing facilities in Malaysia and South Korea. In 2019,Qcells opened its first manufacturing facility in the United States.[14]
In recent years,Hanwha has since worked to simplify the structure of units,merging SolarOne into Qcells in December 2014,[15] merging Qcells and the company's Advanced Materials (petrochemicals) group in 2018,[16] Qcells &Advanced Materials acquired a solar company operated by the Hanwha Chemicals group in 2019,[17] and in 2020 Hanwha Qcells &Advanced Materials merged with Hanwha Chemical to form the Hanwha Solutions group.[18]
In January 2023,Qcells made a commitment to invest more than $2.5 billion to build a fully integrated,silicon-based solar supply chain in the United States from raw material to finished module with full production expected by the end of 2024.[19] In August 2024,Qcells received a conditional commitment for a future $US 1.45 Billion loan from the US department of energy to help finance the construction of a fully integrated solar cell manufuacturing facility north of Atlanta,GA. The loan guarantee was approved in part by Qcells receiving an order from Microsoft for 12 gigawatts of solar panels through 2032 thus demonstrating a market for their product.[20]
Qcells also operates a residential solar financing platform in the United States,EnFin,offering loans for those who choose to install PV systems in their homes.
In August 2023,the U.S. Department of Commerce ruled that Qcells had not circumvented tariffs on Chinese-made goods following an investigation involving multiple photovoltaic cell manufacturers.[21][22]
In July 2024,it was reported that Hanwha Qcells’Dalton,Georgia factory was importing cells made with Chinese wafers from TCL Zhonghuan Renewable Energy Technology Co. and Gokin Solar Co.,wafer suppliers who source Xinjiang,China polysilicon from Daqo and GCL,both of which are on the UFLPA Entity List. However,the report had stated that there is no evidence that components containing the banned polysilicon have turned up in Qcells panels.[23] Large manufacturers have their own separate duty rates. Several big China-based producers received far lower rates than Hanwha Qcells. The Commerce Department calculated a subsidy rate of 14.72% for Hanwha Qcells products produced in Malaysia,based in part on government loans and below-market land provisions to the company in that country.[24]
Operations
Qcells develops and produces monocrystaline silicon photovoltaic cells and solar panels. It produces and installs PV systems for commercial,industrial,and residential applications and provides EPC services for large-scale solar power plants.
The company's engineering offices are located at the original headquarters in Thalheim,Germany. Production facilities are located in Dalton,Georgia and Cartersville,Georgia in the United States,Cyberjaya in Malaysia;and Jincheon in South Korea.
Hanwha Solutions Corporation is a multinational energy services,petrochemical,and real estate development company headquartered in Seoul,South Korea. The company is part of the Hanwha Group,a large South Korean business conglomerate. Founded in 1965 as Hanwha Chemical,the company was rebranded as Hanwha Solutions in January 2020 when Hanwha Chemical merged with Hanwha Q Cells &Advanced Materials,which itself was formed out of a 2018 merger. The company added the Hanwha Galleria and Hanwha City Development real estate companies to its portfolio in April 2021. The Galleria division and the Advanced Materials division were spun off. The Electronic Materials business,which had remained part of the Advanced Materials division,was also transferred to a subsidiary of the company.
The Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) is a solar power company with headquarters in Singapore. REC produces silicon materials for photovoltaics (PV) applications and multicrystalline wafers,as well as solar cells and modules. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance New Solar Energy Limited.
BP Solar was a manufacturer and installer of photovoltaic solar cells headquartered in Madrid,Spain,with production facilities in Frederick,MD,India and the People's Republic of China. It was a subsidiary of BP.
Founded in 1981 Isofoton was a Spanish leading manufacturer of photovoltaic cells and modules that had its HQ in Málaga and a distribution network present in over 60 countries. It started as a spin-off of the pioneering research programme of the Institute of Solar Energy of the Technical University of Madrid (IES-UPM) in the field of silicon bifacial solar cells,today a mainstream solar cell technology. In fact,it was the very first factory in the world to mass produce,market and install this type of solar cell technology. By 1987 it abandoned manufacturing of bifacials and transitioned to conventional monofacial solar cells,still,it forged ahead successfully and from 2000 to 2005 it ranked among the top 10 PV manufacturers in the world. At its peak,by 2007,Isofoton employed 1142 people,produced 103MW and had an annual turnover of 414 million euros. In 2014 it filed for bankruptcy,as happened with almost all of the European and US PV manufacturers operating at the time,mainly due to the price pressure of a new wave of Chinese manufacturers.
A solar car is a solar vehicle for use on public roads or race tracks. Solar vehicles are electric vehicles that use self-contained solar cells to provide full or partial power to the vehicle via sunlight. Solar vehicles typically contain a rechargeable battery to help regulate and store the energy from the solar cells and from regenerative braking. Some solar cars can be plugged into external power sources to supplement the power of sunlight used to charge their battery.
MiaSolé is an American solar energy company selling copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film photovoltaic products. MiaSolé's manufacturing process lays CIGS on a flexible stainless steel substrate. MiaSoléproduces all layers of photovoltaic material in a continuous sputtering process.
China is the largest market in the world for both photovoltaics and solar thermal energy. China's photovoltaic industry began by making panels for satellites,and transitioned to the manufacture of domestic panels in the late 1990s. After substantial government incentives were introduced in 2011,China's solar power market grew dramatically:the country became the world's leading installer of photovoltaics in 2013. China surpassed Germany as the world's largest producer of photovoltaic energy in 2015,and became the first country to have over 100 GW of total installed photovoltaic capacity in 2017. As of at least 2024,Chinese firms are the industry leaders in almost all of the key parts of the solar industry supply chain,including polysilicon,silicon wafers,batteries,and photovoltaic modules.
Yingli,formally Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited -. Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited,known as "Yingli Solar," is a solar panel manufacturer. Yingli Green Energy's manufacturing covers the photovoltaic value chain from ingot casting and wafering through solar cell production and solar panel assembly. Yingli's photovoltaic module capacity is 30 GWs.
Global Solar Energy is a US-based manufacturer of CIGS solar cells,a thin-film based photovoltaic technology,with manufacturing operations in Tucson,Arizona,United States,and Berlin,Germany. In 2013,it was bought by Chinese renewable energy company Hanergy.
China Concepts Stock is a set of stock of companies whose assets or earnings have significant activities in mainland China. The People's Republic of China is undergoing major financial transformation,and many leading mainland-based companies have chosen to list themselves overseas to gain access to foreign investor capital. Currently,there are China Concepts Stocks listed on several major stock exchanges around the globe,including the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx),Singapore Exchange (SGX),New York Stock Exchange (NYSE),NASDAQ,NYSE MKT,London Stock Exchange (LSE),Euronext,and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE).
Between 1992 and 2023,the worldwide usage of photovoltaics (PV) increased exponentially. During this period,it evolved from a niche market of small-scale applications to a mainstream electricity source. From 2016-2022 it has seen an annual capacity and production growth rate of around 26%- doubling approximately every three years.
Solar Valley is an industrial area in the Thalheim part of the municipality of Bitterfeld-Wolfen in the district Anhalt-Bitterfeld,Saxony-Anhalt,Germany. It is situated close to the Bundesautobahn 9 and the Leipzig/Halle Airport.
Hanwha Group is a large business conglomerate (chaebol) in South Korea. Founded in 1952 as Korea Explosives Co.,the group has grown into a large multi-profile business conglomerate,with diversified holdings stretching from explosives—their original business—to energy,materials,aerospace,mechatronics,finance,retail,and lifestyle services. In 1992,the company adopted its abbreviation as its new name:"Hanwha".
Hanergy Holding Group Ltd. (Hanergy) is a Chinese multinational company headquartered in Beijing. The company is focusing on thin-film solar value chain,including manufacturing and solar parks development. It also owns the Jinanqiao Hydroelectric Power Station and two wind farms. Hanergy is founded and controlled by Li Hejun.
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