SolarSpace, one of the world’s leading suppliers of solar PV cells, seeks to raise proceeds from an initial public offering (IPO) at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to invest in a US manufacturing facility.
The Chinese solar cell and module producer has submitted an application to be listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The company plans to invest the proceeds from the IPO in establishing an overseas production base in North Carolina, US to produce high-efficiency solar cells to meet market demand. It signed a lease agreement for the production base in January 2025. Phase I of its US solar cell production base is expected to be completed in 2026.
“The huge market demand for photovoltaic products and the current cyclical mismatch in the domestic supply and demand structure, and taking into account the current international trade environment and our existing production capacity layout, we plan to gradually expand our overseas production capacity,” reads SolarSpace’s IPO prospectus in Chinese.
It adds, “Targeting the differentiated market demands with competitiveness and profit margin overseas, we plan to build photovoltaic cell production bases overseas to deliver products directly to overseas customers and expand overseas sales coverage, thereby actively responding to trade areas in the photovoltaic industry.”
SolarSpace says it has ceased production activities at its Cambodian production base and plans to relocate the equipment to the company’s other production bases. Notably, Cambodia is one among the 4 Southeast Asian nations with US tariffs for solar cell imports.
Additionally, SolarSpace said it will use the money raised for research and development (R&D) activities and technological innovation in new PV cell and module products over the next 5 years. The remaining IPO money will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes.
As of December 31, 2024, SolarSpace’s n-type solar cell production capacity stood at approximately 40 GW. Another 12 GW will be added to this once it completes transforming existing production lines to n-type which will expand its total cell capacity to over 50 GW. SolarSpace’s module manufacturing capacity stood at approximately 8 GW. Of this, it operates a 15 GW solar cell and 3 GW module capacity in Laos.
SolarSpace sold 34.9 GW of solar cells in 2023 and expanded the sales to 34.5 GW in 2024. This business segment reported revenues of RMB 8.96 billion ($1.24 billion) and RMB 9.17 billion ($1.26 billion), accounting for 91% and 81.1% of the total revenues for those years, respectively. In 2024, SolarSpace was the 2nd largest supplier of solar PV cells globally, according to InfoLink Consulting.
The company’s solar module business remains small in comparison, as it sold 1.4 GW volume in 2023 and 2.9 GW in 2024.
SolarSpace had previously submitted an A-share listing application to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Growth Enterprise Market in May 2023, passing the review in December of that year. However, with the change in the market environment thereon, its sponsor Haitong Securities withdrew its sponsorship soon after SolarSpace reported losses in Q1 2024.
At the 2024 RE+ event in the US, SolarSpace Corporate Vice President James Hu spoke exclusively to TaiyangNews Managing Director Michael Schmela.
