(Yicai Global) Feb. 20 -- TBEA, a Chinese transformer manufacturer, will spend up to CNY4 billion (USD582.6 million) on building its first distributed photovoltaic project for residential use.

A unit of TBEA called TBEA Xinjiang New Energy will construct the project with an annual installed capacity of up to one gigawatt to seize market opportunities, the Changji-headquartered company said in a statement recently.

China’s PV industry is developing rapidly, driven by the country’s goal to become carbon neutral by 2060. Besides solar parks, market players are building distributed PV projects, usually installed on rooftops. TBEA said that in the first three quarters of 2022, nearly 16.6 GW of residential PV solutions was installed, up by 42 percent from a year ago.

Before this, TBEA focused on upstream parts of the supply chain. Its subsidiary Xinte Energy is one of China’s leading raw material suppliers for solar panels with an annual capacity of 200,000 tons of polycrystalline silicon as of Dec. 31, 2022.

The parent has benefited from the global shift of attention to the energy industry in the past year. TBEA predicts its net profit to have more than doubled to a point between CNY15.7 billion and CNY16.7 billion (USD2.3 billion and USD2.4 billion) in 2022 from 2021, according to its earnings forecast released last month.

Chinese makers of materials for solar modules are expanding downstream. For example, Chengdu-based Tongwei said last year that it will build its first two CNY4 billion PV panel plants with an annual capacity of 25 GW in eastern China's Yancheng and Nantong.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi