Panasonic and China’s GS-Solar signed an agreement to collaborate in the photovoltaic business. Under the terms of the agreement, Panasonic will sell its solar manufacturing subsidiary Panasonic Energy Malaysia to GS-Solar. The company will separate its photovoltaic research and development function in an effort to establish a new venture in Japan.
Both companies aim to further develop the heterojunction photovoltaic technologies. Through the collaboration they will introduce high added-value photovoltaic modules to a market with potential growth on a global scale.
With that, Panasonic will be able to scale up the production capability of its photovoltaic business. It will also continue to procure and sell its photovoltaic modules produced at its Malaysian factory. Panasonic manufactures cells for its photovoltaic module combining amorphous and monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic cell layers to ensure high conversion efficiency.
The decision comes in an effort to also boost its profit for this financial year which is expected to drop for the first time in eight years owing to rising cost in battery output. Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga said, “Over the last three years, we aimed for stable revenue and profit growth focusing mainly on the automotive business…but development costs and insufficient abilities to adjust to rapid battery production expansion limited our profits.”
Based in Quanzhou, Fujian, GS-Solar is a photovoltaic module manufacturer active in research and development of heterojunction photovoltaic technologies.