JinkoSolar Fires Up – Quite Literally

A spanner has been thrown into the works of solar panel manufacturer JinkoSolar after a fire at one of its manufacturing facilities.

On Monday, the company reported a fire occurred last week at one of its silicon wafer slicing and solar cell manufacturing workshops in Shanxi Province, China. Thankfully there were no casualties and the firm says the surrounding area and communities were not impacted.

At the end of May last year, Jinko announced the phased construction of a 56 GW integrated wafer-cell-module capacity in Shanxi – whether this is the same facility isn’t clear.

The cause of the fire and how much damage was done wasn’t mentioned in the announcement, but Jinko says fallout from the incident is expected to impact its operations and financial results in 2024. However, the company is re- distributing  its wafer and cell production among different factories to minimize disruption to its manufacturing process.

The company has 14 factories, most of which are in China – but it also has production facilities in the USA, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Q1 – Solar Shipments Up, Revenue Down

In other news, the firm announced its first quarter 2024 financial results this week, indicating total revenues of RMB23.04 billion (~AUD $4.88 billion), down 29.8% sequentially and down 1.2% year-over-year.

While year-on-year revenue was down a little, shipments were well up YOY, indicating the impact of lower panel prices. The company reports shipments of 21,907 MW in the first quarter; breaking down to 19,993 MW for solar modules, and 1,914 MW for cells and wafers. Q1 shipments were down 21.4% sequentially, but up 51.2% year-over-year.

Looking to the current quarter, JinkoSolar expects module shipments to be between 24.0 GW and 26.0 GW, and between 100.0 GW and 110.0 GW for the full year of 2024. By the end of this year, it expects annual production capacity for mono wafers to reach 120.0 GW, 110.0 GW for solar cells and 130.0 GW for solar panels.

JinkoSolar Chairman and CEO Xiande Li also stated the company was accelerating phasing out production of P-type cells in favour of N-Type. He expects N-type modules to account for nearly 90% of Jinko’s total module shipments by the end of this year, with mass-produced N-type cell efficiency to have reached 26.5% by then.

He said the company is also continuing to deploy new tech to enhance efficiency of mass-produced TOPCon cells and module output, while reducing costs. TOPCon, which stands for Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact, is a touchy topic at the moment, with competitor Maxeon keeping its lawyers busy in chasing alleged related patent infringements in the USA. Three major manufacturers are currently in Maxeon’s sights; Canadian Solar, REC Solar and Hanwha Q CELLS.

JinkoSolar was founded in China in 2006 and has evolved into one of the largest solar panel manufacturers on the planet. JinkoSolar reviews here on SQ are generally quite positive, with the company averaging a 4.8 star rating overall and 4.9 stars over the last 12 months. The company has also been on the podium each year in SolarQuotes’ Installers Choice Awards. This year the firm took out silver for the fourth year in a row for the best solar panels in 2024 in the budget category.