Chinese solar shares jumped in morning trading on Wednesday after local media reported delegations sent by Elon Musk visited companies in the sector days after Musk announced plans to build large-scale solar cell production in the US.
The CSI all-share solar power equipment sub-industry index rose 6.8% by the lunch break, while the CSI SH-HK-SZ solar power 50 index was up 5.6%.
A team sent by Musk recently visited several photovoltaic companies in China, including those involved in equipment, silicon wafers, battery modules and perovskite technology, according to a story publicised on Tuesday by Sina Finance, a private Chinese media company, that cited sources in the Chinese solar industry. The story did not name any companies.
Shortly afterwards, state-backed media group 21st Century Business Herald reported Chinese solar giant JinkoSolar had confirmed a visit from a team sent by Musk.
JinkoSolar shares soared 20% on Wednesday to their daily limit. Trina Solar shares were up 9% in afternoon trading.
Tesla and JinkoSolar were approached for comment about the visits but had not responded before this article was published.
Musk announced plans to build 100GW of solar cell capacity in the US during a Tesla earnings call last week. Several days earlier at Davos, he said the US could produce all its electricity needs from solar power.
“The solar opportunity is underestimated,” he said on the earnings call.
“We’re going to work towards getting 100GW a year of solar cell production, integrating across the entire supply chain from raw materials to already finished solar panels.”
The US solar market is heavily protected by tariffs designed to stop imports of cheaper panels and cells from China and Southeast Asia, where many Chinese companies have subsidiaries.
However, many US domestic producers have links to Chinese manufacturers.
The US installed 11.7GW in the third quarter of last year, with more than 30GW installed across the first three quarters.
Reuters
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