Neo Solar and Del Solar Merger

Consolidation in the global solar industry continues at an accelerated pace with companies exiting the solar business, bankruptcies being announced, takeovers by government and private companies. Now two of the largest Taiwanese solar companies have decided to merge.

Neo Solar being one of the fastest growing companies in Taiwan with its focus on solar cells.It managed to grow revenues and shipments, despite tough competition from domestic as well as international competition. Del Solar is another Taiwanese one with big operations in solar cells like the others, owned by Taiwanese electronics giant Delta Electronics. The company like Neo Solar has given strong competition to others like Motech. Neo Solar Power decided to merge with Del Solar. After the merger, Neo Solar claims to be the largest cell and panel manufacturer in Taipei, excelling even Motech one of the oldest solar cell companies in Taiwan. Motech used to be a pure play cell producer, but later expanded into polysilicon, modules and wafers. The cell capacity of the newly formed company is estimated to be around 2 GW annually with an output up to 240 MW of solar modules.

The company has already started receiving big orders due to this merger. It received a new order 300 MW in new modules.

Taiwanese Companies the biggest beneficiaries of Anti-dumping Duties Imposition

The Taiwanese solar companies have been the biggest beneficiaries of the duties on Chinese solar panels imposed by USA and the uncertainty arising from possible sanctions by Europe and India. To hedge their risk, solar companies have been diversifying their orders to solar cell factories in Taiwan which does not suffer from any anti dumping or CVD duties. Even Chinese solar companies with massive unused solar cell capacities are procuring Taiwanese solar cells to assemble them into solar panels for sale in USA. This is being done to avoid the duties imposed by the US Government.

Read more why we think Taiwan Solar Companies are flourishing due to Global Solar Wars.

Taiwan is the second largest manufacture of solar cells after China. The country has a number of large solar cell manufacturers like Gintech, Motech and Neo Solar. These companies have managed to survive the brutal downturn by acting as OEM suppliers to larger Japanese and Chinese solar companies. They have superior technology and low costs. Taiwan also has a large solar wafer manufacturing sector, which helps these companies to procure wafers at a low cost. Gintech and Motech have huge solar cell capacities and can help the Chinese solar companies circumvent European duties. These companies are already seeing their factories run at full utilization due to the solar boom in neighboring Japan. These companies will benefit even more with mainland solar panel companies outsourcing solar cell and even solar panel orders.

While Taiwanese companies have benefited from duties imposed on Chinese solar panel makers by USA and Europe, they have not been able to stave off the massive drop in solar cell prices. Solar Cell prices have dropped to as low as ~ 35c/watt. Despite the prices of solar wafers falling, the ASP of 35c/watt means that the gross margin is negative. However the Taiwanese expect the cell price to rise to 41c/ watt.

PV Magazine

Neo Solar chairman Quincy Lin, quoted in the Taipei Times, claims the company is in prime position to take advantage of the upsurge in Chinese orders and will also benefit from cheaper raw material costs thanks to stronger purchasing power due to its bigger size and influence after the merger.

Neo Solar and Del Solar Merger for Good – Consolidation the only way to survive

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