JinkoSolar Clocks Up 300GW Of Panel Shipments

Chinese solar panel manufacturing goliath JinkoSolar says the firm now ships 1GW of modules every 4 days.

Last week, Jinko was celebrating having shipped 300GW of solar panels since it began operations; adding to the distinctions of (claiming to be) the first to reach 100GW (in April 2022) and 200GW (November 2023) in cumulative shipments.

Tiger Neo A Winner For Jinko

Jinko’s N-type Tiger Neo modules have been very popular, with sales exceeding 140GW in just two years according to the company. This year, Tiger Neo’s quarterly sales have exceeded 20GW and the firm says this marks the sixth consecutive quarter as the world’s best-selling panel line.

In late October this year, Jinko unveiled a new generation of Tiger Neo solar panels, the 3.0; with a residential product line up to 495 Watts and up to 670W for C&I and utility scale applications. I’m still yet to see a datasheet for these, and the company’s main website was out of action when I tried to access it yesterday.

JinkoSolar currently has 14 manufacturing bases; located in in China, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the United States. By the end of this year, the company expects to have annual production capacities of 120GW for monocrystalline silicon wafers, 110GW for cells and 130GW for modules.

For the full year of 2024, the company estimates its module shipments will be in the range of 90GW to 100GW¹. It took Jinko around 16 years to reach its first 100GW of shipments. Whether the firm achieves the lower or upper end of estimates for 2024, it will be another major achievement.

As for how many panels 100GW represents, if they average 500W capacity, that would be 200 million panels. A bit more trivia – 100GW is around four times as much small-scale (<100kW capacity) rooftop solar capacity that has ever been installed in Australia.

But Tough Times Continue

While Jinko has been celebrating shipping shedloads of panels, revenues are another story.

Its financial results for Q3 2024 indicated quarterly shipments were 25,910 MW (23,838 MW for modules, and 2,072 MW for cells and wafers). This was up 2.3% sequentially, and up 14.7% year-over-year. But total revenues were RMB24.51 billion (US$3.49 billion), up 1.9% sequentially and down 23.0% year-over-year.

Xiande Li, JinkoSolar’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, chose to see a bright side.

“While earnings were under pressure across the industry during the quarter, we achieved relatively outstanding results leveraging our leading position in N-type TOPCon technology, competitive products, as well as our global sales and manufacturing networks.”

Mr. Li has previously complained of “increasingly irrational low prices” along the solar panel supply chain; which is a bit like complaining about being stuck in traffic when you’re a part of it.

Still, rock-bottom solar panel pricing makes it a very good time for Australians to install a PV system. JinkoSolar panels have proven to be a good choice for a system; particularly for the budget-conscious. They are popular among installers too, scoring second place for the fourth consecutive year in SolarQuotes’ Installers Choice Awards for the best solar panels in 2024 (budget category).