(Yicai Global) March 2 -- Sunwoda Electronic’s shares fell after the Chinese power battery maker set out a third expansion plan in seven months.

Sunwoda Electronic [SHE: 300207] dropped 3.3 percent to close at CNY35.16 (USD5.56) today, after opening up 1.3 percent. The stock is down 16.6 percent since the start of the year.

The Shenzhen-based firm will invest CNY12 billion (USD1.9 billion) on a new 30 gigawatt-hours plant in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, it said in a statement late yesterday. It will set up a project company responsible for the investment, construction, and operation of the project, whose business will span the research and development, design, production, and sales of power battery cells, modules, and system products.

Last August, Sunwoda announced a CNY20 billion (USD3.2 billion) investment in a new power battery cells and systems production base with annual capacity of 50 GWh in Jiangxi province. In December, it set out further plans to spend CNY20 billion to build a power battery and energy storage battery plant with an annual capacity of 30 GWh in Shandong province.

Sunwoda Electronic, whose main business was lithium batteries, has been expanding in the power battery sector. Its plants in Huizhou and Nanjing have a capacity of 4 GWh and 30 GWh, respectively, but the company’s production capacity is expected to greatly increase after the three new projects come on line.

The firm had almost 2.1 GWh of its batteries installed in vehicles last year, accounting for only 1.3 percent of the Chinese market, according to data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance. The figure was 1.2 GWh in January, ranking eighth with a market share of 1.4 percent.

Editor: Futura Costaglione