China’s solar power demand is expected to surge to 3-4 gigawatts in 2012 from at least 1 GW this year as the country becomes one of the world’s major markets for solar, the head of China’s LDK Solar Co (LDK) said.
“We see China’s demand at 3-4 GW next year,” LDK Solar Chief Executive and Chairman Xiaofeng Peng told an international photovoltaic conference in northern Italy on Monday.
Peng then told Reuters that Chinese solar power demand is estimated at least at 1 GW this year, while global solar power demand is seen by his company at 19 GW “under a conservative view” this year and this number could rise.
The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) expects China to be among five markets to add more than 1 GW of new photovoltaic capacity in 2011, the association’s chairman told Reuters on Monday.
Last week, LDK Solar Co, a vertically integrated solar company listed in the United States, cut its first quarter revenue forecast due to lower-than-expected module shipments, sending the shares 2 percent lower.
Peng told Reuters on Monday there had been delays in shipments of modules to Italy due to regulatory uncertainty about the government’s new incentive plan, but lower first-quarter revenues would be compensated for in the second quarter.
“There is no effect on the full year revenues, our full-year revenue forecast is the same. Revenues from the first quarter will move to the second quarter,” Peng said.
LDK last week stuck to its full-year revenue target of $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion.
LDK products such as wafers and cells are used to build photovoltaic solar modules that turn sunlight into electricity. The company has benefited from expanding into making the industry’s key raw material, polysilicon, as well as selling its own modules.
