A one-step solution provider in the solar industry, ET Solar has unique features which differentiate it from other manufacturers. Dennis She, President and CEO of ET Solar, discusses what they are.
Reported by Jeanny H. Lim (swied@infothe.com)
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ET Solar is a Photovoltaic (PV) system turnkey solution provider and vertically-integrated manufacturer of PV products based in China. Could you give us a brief account on how ET Solar entered the solar photovoltaic business?
ET Solar Group, founded in October 2006, has grown rapidly to become a vertically integrated producer and provider of solar modules and related photovoltaic solutions to the global solar market. This startling growth and success in the solar industry are largely as a result of ET Solar Group’s unswerving commitment to delivering the highest quality and most cost-effective solar solutions to customers worldwide.
What are your keys to competing in a saturated solar cell and module market? What have you been doing to make your technology stand out from the crowd?
ET Solar Group strives to ensure excellent product quality and stable product performance. With application of advanced manufacture technology, ET Solar Group guarantees a high degree of stability and reliability in the lifetime of its products. Moreover, anti-corrosion technology as well as high-quality materials and components are applied in the manufacturing process. ET Solar Group provides customers with anti-water and pressure resistant, corrosion resistant products with long service life. Our strict quality control ensures the compliance with ISO and globally recognized quality standards such as IEC, TUV and UL. The ET products with 25-year linear performance warranty and 10-year material and processing quality guarantee.
Taking a high-technology, high-efficiency solar cell and mass-producing it at low cost is key to mainstream adoption of solar. How are you innovating your way down the cost curve? What are you doing to bring the cost down to the mass-market rates?
ET Solar Group is a one-stop solution provider of solar industry. Our vertically integrated manufacturing capacity includes silicon ingot, wafer, cell, module and a variety of BoS component products, which makes us easiler to do the mass production to reduce the cost. We have three manufactuing bases in local China city, making the cost for labor low, and we also have local branches and offices in our market areas, providing local service which is cheaper and with more understanding about the local customer requirements.
What is your 2010 turnover and what do you think has contributed to that number? How much growth do you expect for this year? What’s your production volume and sales target this year?
ET Solar Group has developed very fast for the past years, with our better understanding about the local market and high quality products. We achieved capacity increase every year. This year, we also have big growth in production and sales. Actually, we are opening new factories in China.
What’s next at ET Solar as you strive to improve your expertise and expand your market share?
As a one-stop solution provider in the solar industry, we have unique features which differentiate us from other manufacturers. We manufacture high quality ingot, wafer, cell and module/BIPV products and offer a wide variety of BoS component products ranging from tracking systems and residential rooftop kits to power cabinets for residential, commercial and utility customers in more than 50 countries and regions. In addition to the broad product suite, we also offer high quality and cost-efficient turnkey system solutions and services to specialized PV investors. We strive to develop products to meet the growing and changing market demand. Our experienced R&D team is committed to developing highly efficient and affordable solar energy products in both technologically and commercially innovative ways.
What will be the growth strategy of ET Solar?
The market is changing every minute, so what we do will be all to suit the market. On the one hand, we will keep eyes on the market to see what customers need. On the other hand, we will still work on the better products with high quality and tailor-made service. In a word, we will put all of our heart into our customers and the green energy industry.
What does your plan for future expansion look like?
We believe that the solar industry will develop well in the future, which means more and more people will come to join the team of using solar energy as their first choice, so we expect a bright future of the development. And, besides the traditional Europe and American markets, we also think the new markets like Asia and South Africa.
Recently, ET Solar has doubled the length of your module warranty. Could you give us more details?
Under the new module product warranty commitment, ET Solar Group extends the warranty term for defects of modules in workmanship and materials from 5 years to 10 years for its core module products since May 2011. Under the power output commitment, ET Solar Group undertakes a positive power output range of up to 5 W on top of the nametag power output for its core module products. And I’m also glad to tell you that we just released a 25-year linear power performance warranty program, together with the 10-year workmanship warranty program, which will provide stronger assurance to our customers.
Which country/region is the biggest market for ET Solar and why?
Right now, we have set up business in over 50 countries all over the world, and we have branches and offices in 12 countries. Europe and America are both very big and important markets for us. We have entered these markets relatively early and due to their mature development, we have already had stably growing business there. But the emerging markets like Australia and others are becoming more and more important for us. We believe that in the future, we will also develop more important markets with our experiences in the past.
What market does ET Solar wish to focus on in the near future?
We are focusing on increasing sales in Israel and Australia as furture markets.
ET Solar, a China-headquartered vertically integrated manufacturer of PV products, had to refurbish itself as a Europe sales-based company by securing European solar distribution channels. We do pursue providing less expensive products with no compromise in quality and become a market leader in residential market. We will continue to establish OEM partnership agreement with major companies in Europe as well.
As a company headquartered in China, what is your strategy for the growing Asian market?
It is reported that solar demand will shift from Europe to Asia─Japan, China, Australia and India. And we are going to open an office in Singapore to help our market exploration in Southeast Asia. For solar energy, Southeast Asia is an emerging market. We expect the demand in this region is likely to grow in the next several years.
What have you been doing to grow your presence in the INTERNATIONAL solar arena?
Each year, we attend the solar and renewable energy exhibitions in different countries to promote our products and our company. More than that, our global network allows us an overall supervision of the market. We establish the marketing and sales strategy from a global perspective including the international promotion activities, like the customer thanks party, the co-marking activities in local markets, and the joint activities we hold together with the installers. Of course, our logo and story appear very often in the international media, which all make ET Solar Group now knowable all over the world.
Jeanny H. Lim is Editor-in-Chief of InterPV. Send your comments to swied@infothe.com.
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