Shift of Focus to Fast-growing Module and Project Business
Schott Solar to Close Down Wafer Production
German Schott Solar AG is continuing with its realignment efforts and will close down its wafer manufacturing activities at its site in Jena. The company announced that it will be concentrating on its fast-growing module and project business.
Dr. Martin Heming, CEO of Schott Solar AG: “We need to stop pursuing upstream stages of the value creation chain that only generate losses and concentrate instead on the fast-growing module and project business" (Picture: Schott Solar)
In future, Schott Solar will be concentrating on its fast-growing module and project business and will discontinue its meanwhile unprofitable wafer manufacturing activities at Jena, thus concluding its restructuring efforts. By realigning these activities, the company hopes to create the prerequisites for profitable growth. 290 employees at the site in Jena are affected by this move. Schott Solar is currently evaluating the prospects of offering further employment for the respective employees in other areas of the company.
According to Schott, developments in the global solar market have made restructuring necessary. Overcapacities and severe declines in prices, particularly with wafers and cells, have been the dominating factors. Price pressures are being further intensified primarily by Asian competitors who have once again lowered their prices for modules by more than 40%, just as they did in 2009.
As Dr. Martin Heming, CEO of SCHOTT Solar AG, puts it: “We need to stop pursuing upstream stages of the value creation chain that only generate losses and concentrate instead on the fast-growing module and project business. With the help of this new strategy, excellent products, and the strong ‘Schott Solar’ brand, we are in an excellent position to be able to operate successfully in the difficult solar market. We are quite optimistic because we managed to sell more modules than ever before last year and increased our market share. We plan to continue along these same lines in 2012.”
The new strategy will be rounded off by opening a technology center for monocrystalline wafers at the site in Jena. Manufacturing of thin-film photovoltaic modules will also continue in Jena.
Growth strategy in new focus areas
Current studies confirm that the industry is suffering from overcapacities, but still project global growth of up to 20 percent per year over the next few years. Schott Solar plans to pursue innovation in order to leverage this potential. The company will be launching its new Perform Mono high-performance module in the first half of 2012. Furthermore, several major projects are currently being realized in Germany, Thailand, India, Greece, Italy, and France. At the end of 2011, the company completed construction of a solar park in Saxony-Anhalt that features 24,000 modules.
Schott emphasizes that these decisions will have no effect whatsoever on the field of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) with its receivers for solar power plants that employ parabolic trough technology.