(Yicai Global) April 19 -- Trina Solar plans to spend CNY5 billion (USD727 million) to build another high-efficiency solar battery factory to boost the company’s solar cell output and improve profitability, the country’s biggest solar panel maker said yesterday.

The new facility, which will be located in Huai’an, eastern Jiangsu province, will have an annual capacity of 10 gigawatts, the Changzhou, Jiangsu province-based firm said. The plant is expected to start operating within 12 months of breaking ground. No additional details were given.

It is the second PV plant project in Huai’an that Trina Solar has announced in the last seven months. Last September it said that it will invest CNY6 billion (USD872.2 million) to build a solar cell and module factory in the city. The first batch of solar panels were produced on March 31, the Huai’an government said at the end of last month.

And the first high-efficiency PV panels rolled off the production line in its new Qinghai facility in the northwest of the country on April 18, the company said yesterday.

Trina Solar is profiting from booming sales of solar panels. The firm is predicting net profit in the first quarter to soar between 139 percent and 231 percent from a year earlier to reach between CNY1.3 billion (USD188.9 million) and CNY1.8 billion, the company said in its latest earnings report. And it is expecting net profit last year to double from 2021.

Trina Solar has sold more than 100 gigawatts of PV panels since the firm was set up in 1997. It conducts business in more than 150 countries and offshore sales account for over 60 percent of earnings, it said earlier.

Unmoved by the news, Trina Solar’s stock price [SHA:688599] was trading down 2.2 percent at CNY49.62 (USD7.21) as of 1.15 p.m. China time today.

Editor: Kim Taylor