Yingli says it targets 10% of Australia solar market

Yingli Green Energy, the world’s largest solar manufacturing company, says it aims to grab a 10 per cent share of the Australian solar market within two years as it concentrates on the commercial and utility-scale sector.

The Chinese-based company on Thursday announced the formal opening of its offices in Australia, as well as a distribution agreement with L&H Group, the largest electrical wholesaler in Australian and New Zealand.

Yingli Solar has had only a small presence in the Australian market, and commercial director Daman Cole says its focus will not be on the residential sector, which has provided nearly all the 2.5GW of solar PV installed to date, but which Yingli sees as a crowded and over-serviced market.

Instead, Cole says the company will focus on the commercial market – where he expects businesses to install solar arrays from the 30kW to 1MW size.

“in the commercial market we see a big opportunity that we can realize by 2015,” Cole told RenewEconomy. “He cited the need for solar to address ay-time peaks, and rising electricity and network costs.

“Solar and grid parity is going to be a much stronger argument for commercial users,” he said.”Solar is not the only answer to rising costs of grid electricity, but it will be one of the mechanisms that allows businesses to reduce their reliance on the grid.

He said battery storage was obviously the next major development and was “part of every manufacturers future”.

Cole says Yingli also expects the utility-scale market in Australia to pick up, as well as off-grid solutions. Yingli has products ranging from 6 watts to 600kW.

Yingli vice president Judy Tzeng Lee says Australia was one of a number of countries that would provide the most growth in the market – along with South Africa, India and other parts of Asia.

“We hope to get to 10 per cent (market share in Australia( by 2015,” she said, adding that emerging markets – beyond Europe, north America, China and Japan – would soon contribute more than 20 per cent of Yingli’s global sales. Yingli’s annual manufacturing capacity currently stands at 2.45GW – around the total capacity installed in Australia.

Yingli’s agreement with L&H Solar + Solutions will result in the distribution Yingli Solar’s flagship PANDA monocrystalline PV products, as well as its high-end polycrystalline YGE PV products  to more than 200 wholesale outlets and more than 30,000 electrical contractors across Australia and New Zealand.

“This partnership was a logical step as we see enormous synergy between our brands,” Cole said in a statement. “Yingli Solar and L&H Solar + Solutions are both focused on raising the bar on quality across the solar industry, increasing electricity yields through innovation and providing the highest return on investment for our customers.”