Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

ET Solar Group plans to set up a $200 million industry fund with partners to invest in power projects in Asia’s burgeoning clean-energy markets.

The Chinese solar-panel maker is in talks with about five companies, President Dennis She said in an interview. The fund, in which it intends to take a 10 percent stake, will focus on solar in China, South Asia and Southeast Asia or Australia.

The company is shifting its focus to China as the nation becomes the biggest solar market by annual installations while overseas business shrinks. In the first quarter the country added solar capacity almost equal to France’s entire solar-power supply as it implemented plans to cap emissions. The rapid growth has spurred Sky Solar Holdings Ltd., Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. and others to form funds to finance new projects.

ET Solar, based in Nanjing, is seeking to broaden financing channels and “use dollars for the Chinese market, which will lower costs a lot,” She said in Shanghai. China may account for about 30 percent of the company’s project development this year, up from 10 percent in 2014, he said.

China may install as much as a record 19 gigawatts of solar power this year, compared with 13 gigawatts in 2014, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates.

ET Solar Energy Corp., the company’s project-development unit, had planned to sell shares to the public in the U.S. by the first quarter of 2015. It’s now considering an initial public offering in other markets this year because U.S. valuations were too low and the company has shifted its focus to Asia, She said, without elaborating.

The unit, backed by Tsing Capital and NewMargin Ventures, plans to complete construction of 350 megawatts of solar-power projects this year, 75 percent more than in 2014, according to She. ET Solar can produce 1 gigawatt of solar panels annually.

Besides China, the company is studying solar project expansion in the U.K., Turkey, the U.S., Chile, the Philippines, Pakistan, South Africa and Australia. It’s also seeking partners to make panels in Mexico and Brazil for local markets, She said.

The group acquired a 100-megawatt panel factory in Malaysia last year and plans to triple capacity at the plant this year.