COMPANY

OUR STRENGTHS

VERTICAL INTEGRATION

We believe that our vertical integration strategy has allowed us, and will continue to allow us, to capture value throughout the solar PV value chain, achieve better quality control of our products and realize synergistic cost savings. We began commercial production of solar cells in April 2007, which favorably impacted our margins and helped to offset factors negative pressures such as a decrease in average selling price and increasing polysilicon prices. Specifically, we believe our vertically integrated business model has allowed us to:

  • Lower manufacturing costs to deliver competitive product price to customer
  • Reduce additional costs, such as those associated with packaging and transportation
  • Reduce breakage loss that occurs during shipment between various productions locations associated with toll manufacturing
  • Reduce reliance on 3rd party suppliers, thus reducing quality and supply risks
  • Shorten production cycle and improve value chain coordination
  • Reduce reliance on toll manufacturing and capture upstream or downstream profit margins
  • Streamline manufacturing processes and improve product quality
 
 
 

SUCCESSFUL EXECUTION

We have consistently achieved profitability since its IPO in 2006 and have continued to achieve margins higher than the industry average. Our net revenues have increased rapidly in recent years. In 2007, our net revenues were $301.8 million compared to $114.5 million in 2006. Our net revenues increased primarily due to our increased sales and manufacturing capacity as demand for our products remained strong. In addition, we recorded net income from continuing operations of $35.4 million in 2007 compared to net income of $13.2 million in 2006. While maintaining our focus on full process vertical integration, Trina Solar has consistently met or exceeded its stated capacity expansion goals, a testament to the planning and execution of the management team.

 
 
 

MANAGEMENT TEAM

The listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:TSL) and support of international investors has allowed the company to attract talent from around the world. Today, Trina Solar has a team with employees over a dozen nations with significant management and PV industry experience, who contribute each day to the success of the company.

 
   
 

SALES & MARKETING

We currently sell most of our solar modules to customers located in Europe. Solar manufacturers like us have capitalized on government and regulatory policies for the promotion of solar power in many jurisdictions. In order to continue growing our sales and to reduce our exposure to any particular market segment, we intend to broaden our geographic presence and customer base. While Germany continues to be a major market for us, we have significantly expanded our sales of solar modules to several solar power markets, including Spain, Italy, Belgium and Greece. In 2007, we signed several agreements with well-recognized companies in Spain and Italy. These sales are conducted in line with our goals of increasing our market presence in Europe outside of Germany and building our brand as one of the top global solar brands. We are also targeting sales in emerging PV markets such as the United States, France and South Korea.

 

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

We focus our research and development efforts towards improving our ingot, wafer, solar cell and solar module manufacturing capabilities. We seek to reduce manufacturing costs and improve the performance of our products.

Our research and development department is divided into teams responsible for research of each stage of the solar power value chain, such as ingot, wafer, solar cell and solar module production and system integration. We also have a technology committee, which meets regularly to review current development progress and identify new research and development areas. Our technology committee is spearheaded by our senior management and is comprised of both our employees and external solar energy experts.

 

We seek to maximize our silicon usage, as well as use a significant proportion of reclaimable silicon raw materials, in the production of ingots. In the first quarter of 2008, our average silicon usage was approximately 7.2 grams per watt. We also seek to increase the size of the ingots we produce. We are working towards the production, on a trial basis, of silicon wafers with a width of 156 millimeters, from 125 millimeters currently, sliced from larger ingots. Currently, we slice monocrystalline wafers to a 180 micron thickness, and multicrystalline wafers to a 200 micron thickness. We are exploring ways to reduce the thickness of our monocrystalline and multicrystalline wafers to a 160 micron and 180 micron thickness, respectively, by the end of 2008. For the assembly of modules, our research and development team works closely with our manufacturing team and customers to improve our solar module and system designs, including integrating construction elements with our modules for use in system integration projects that require our modules to be built for certain applications, such as roof tiles and glass panels. We hope to increase the power output of our solar modules to 240 W by 2008, as well as to reduce the number of solar cells within a module.

As we expand into solar cell manufacturing, we are developing the process technology to make full use of the conversion efficiency advantages of monocrystalline silicon over other solar power technologies, while simultaneously reducing the manufacturing costs. We achieved average conversion efficiencies of 16.8% in monocrystalline and 15.6% in multicrystalline in 2007, and plan to increase the average efficiencies to 17.0% in monocrystalline and 15.6% in multicrystalline by the end of 2008. We also plan to make additional efforts to realize the technical and cost synergies of having in-house vertically integrated manufacturing capabilities.

 

INNOVATIVE MANUFACTURING

Polysilicon is an essential raw material in the production of solar cells and modules, and is also used in the semiconductor industry. There is currently an industry-wide shortage of polysilicon, primarily as a result of the growing demand for solar power products

 

To reduce our reliance on polysilicon, we produce silicon ingots and wafers by using a portion of reclaimable silicon raw materials, which include tops and tails of discarded portions of silicon ingots, pot scraps and broken silicon wafers acquired primarily from the semiconductor industry. We also created proprietary processing techniques, and innovative of use of reliable materials.

 

INCREASE MANUFACTURING CAPACITY

All of our research, development and manufacturing of ingots, wafers, cells and solar modules are conducted at our facilities in Changzhou, China, where we occupy a site area of approximately 152,526 square meters. We have an ongoing development plan to add approximately 161,475 square meters to our existing facilities to increase our production capacity, which we expect to complete by 2010, with a substantial portion of our planned capital expenditures for 2009 to be used for this expansion. We expect to increase our total annual production capacity from ingots to solar modules to 350 MW by the end of 2008 and to 700 MW by the end of 2009.

 
 
 

QUALITY CONTROL

Our quality control was set up according to the quality system requirements of ISO 9001:2000. Our quality control consists of three components: incoming inspections through which we ensure the quality of the raw materials that we source from third parties, in-process quality control of our manufacturing processes, and output quality control of finished products through inspection and by conducting reliability and other tests.

We have received international certifications for our quality assurance programs, including ISO 9001:2000, which we believe demonstrates our technological capabilities as well as instill customer confidence.

 

VARIETY OF PRODUCTS

Solar modules are arrays of interconnected solar cells encased in a weatherproof frame. We produce standard solar monocrystalline modules ranging from 165 W to 230 W in power output and multicrystalline modules ranging from 200 W to 220 W in power output, built to general specifications for use in a wide range of residential, commercial, industrial and other solar power generation systems. The variation in power output is based on the conversion efficiency of the cells used in our solar modules, as well as the types of cells. We assemble solar modules either from monocrystalline or multicrystalline cells. We also design and produce solar modules based on our customers' specifications. Our solar modules are sealed, weatherproof and able to withstand high levels of ultraviolet radiation and moisture.

 
 
 

ENVIROMENTAL MATTERS

We believe we have obtained all of the environmental permits necessary to conduct our business in a clean and responsible manner. Our manufacturing processes generate noise, waste water, gaseous wastes and other industrial wastes. However, we have devoted significant efforts to reduce such wastes to acceptable levels. We have installed various types of anti-pollution equipment in our facilities to reduce, treat, and where feasible, recycle the wastes generated in our manufacturing process. We believe we are currently in compliance with all applicable environmental laws and regulations. Our operations are subject to regulation and periodic monitoring by local environmental protection authorities.

We are also subject to a variety of governmental regulations related to environmental protection. The major environmental regulations applicable to us include the Environmental Protection Law of the PRC, the Law of PRC on the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, Implementation Rules of the Law of PRC on the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, the Law of PRC on the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution, Implementation Rules of the Law of PRC on the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution, the Law of PRC on the Prevention and Control of Solid Waste Pollution, and the Law of PRC on the Prevention and Control of Noise Pollution.

 

 

 

 

24. Aug. 10
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