China's photovoltaic industry has created an unprecedented wave of production expansion, involving a total investment of nearly RMB 300 billion from silicon materials, wafers, cells, modules to packaging auxiliary materials such as glass and plastic film, and the production capacity of each link is about 664 GW.

With the expansion of production, the pattern of industry manufacturing base has changed. The layout of silicon materials and wafers in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and other areas with low electricity price has been taking shape, and it has begun to move towards Yunnan, which has a lower price and a better location. Meanwhile, battery and module enterprises have started to build capacity gathering areas around their original production bases, forming industrial clusters, and Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, may be the most efficient one.

According to the analysis of public information, Yiwu has gathered several production bases of photovoltaic giants such as JinkoSolar, JA Solar, Trina Solar, Risen, Aiko Solar and Sveck, with a total investment of over RMB 80 billion, a production capacity of more than 100 GW and an area of about 267 hectares.

Aiko Solar is the first to enter and set its headquarters in Yiwu, when Yiwu Information Optoelectronic High-tech Park was just approved to be established at the end of 2016. In January 2017, Aiko Solar signed an annual output of 8 GW high-efficiency solar cell production base project with the Management Committee of the high-tech zone, involving an investment of about RMB 6 billion, covering an area of 24 hectares. In that year, part of the first phase of the project was put into operation.

Since then, Aiko’s production base began to march into the city on a large scale. In this February, another high-efficiency battery project of 4.3 GW, with a total investment of RMB 1.9 billion was launched; in August, 36 GW cell project with a total investment of nearly RMB 20 billion continued to settle in Yiwu. The company will form a 50 GW high-efficiency solar cell industrial cluster here.

In 2018, Risen settled its 5GW module project in Yiwu, covering an area of about 24 hectares, involving a total investment of RMB 2.5 billion. In this August, Risen signed another 15 GW high-efficiency battery and module project with the park management committee, and successively settled the new production capacity bases of its two major subsidiaries, Sveck and Twinsel there, involving a total investment of about RMB 23 billion.

Trina Solar, JA Solar, JinkoSolar and other module enterprises have also settled in Yiwu. In 2019, Trina assigned 8 GW of cell project here, while JinkoSolar deployed 16 GW battery module production.

In March this year, JA Solar signed a supporting project of 10 GW high-efficiency cell and 10 GW module production in the city. The first 5 GW was officially put into operation at the end of October this year.

Interestingly, more than 90% of the photovoltaic manufacturing bases in Yiwu are compatible with high-efficiency production capacity of 210 and below. In fact, with the technical progress of the industry and the comprehensive popularization of the application of domestic equipment, the production line has developed into a mature state, and the preferential policies of the local government will have an important impact on the location of the manufacturing base of photovoltaic enterprises.

In the Preferential Policy of Yiwu City issued by the city in 2017, almost all kinds of rewards and subsidies, such as talents, technology, enterprise import and export, tax and fee, are included. There are also various kinds of awards for different types of technology identification for enterprises, up to RMB 8 million. Enterprises can also obtain financial subsidies from Yiwu Municipal Government for technological transformation, such as production lines, equipment replacement. The maximum subsidy can reach RMB 20 million.

According to the semi annual report of Aiko Shares in 2020, Aiko Yiwu manufacturing base has obtained equipment subsidy of more than RMB 15 million in this period; Risen has obtained industrial subsidy of RMB 50 million from Yiwu Municipal Government in 2019.

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