Leading ‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member, JinkoSolar has secured new solar panel orders totaling 10.7GW in the first four months of 2019, setting a company and industry record. And announced the construction of a 5GW new greenfield mono wafer production facility in the City of Leshan, Sichuan Province, China.

JinkoSolar said that the new mono wafer facility is expected to increase its high efficiency mono wafer production capacity. By December 2018, the company’s mono wafer capacity was 5.7GW, which was increased to 6.5GW by March 2019, led by improvements in both production output and efficiencies.

Once operational, the new facility will increase the mono wafer production capacity of the company from 6.5GW to 11.5GW.

The SMSL said that overseas orders with fixed terms and conditions accounted for the vast majority of the secured orders, which included the signing of several large supply agreements for PV power projects in Vietnam, Mexico, Spain and a number of other markets, according to the company.

Gener Miao, Chief Marketing Officer of JinkoSolar said, “Leveraging our large geographic footprint, we were able to rapidly benefit from the accelerating shift towards high-efficiency mono panels and secure over 10.7 GW orders for 2019 in record time. With grid parity approaching, we find ourselves in a very strong position in an otherwise highly competitive industry. Our strategic foresight to expand into high efficient product markets at an early stage is paying off. Jinko will continue to support our customers and partners with over 15 GW capacity of industry leading facility.”

Although installations in China have declined rapidly without new support mechanisms, JinkoSolar said that it expected demand to pick up in China during the second half of 2019. Only 5.2GW was installed in China in the first quarter of 2019, a 46%, year-on-year decline.

JinkoSolar also noted that the record-high order book primarily consisted of high efficiency products, such as its latest Cheetah series, reinforcing the global shift to high-efficiency products.