RISEN Energy Co., a Shenzhen-listed solar module maker, is planning to build a 45 billion yuan (US$7 billion) integrated solar power factory in Inner Mongolia that’ll run on clean energy. The plant will produce materials across the supply chain from industrial silicon to finished solar modules. It’ll also host and draw power from solar, wind and renewable energy storage facilities. The clean energy component should allow the project to avoid higher power prices for heavily polluting factories. It’s also the latest solar manufacturing complex to be located outside Xinjiang. The plant, to be built in two phases, will be able to produce 200,000 tons of industrial silicon, 150,000 tons of polysilicon, 10 gigawatts of solar cells and three gigawatts of modules a year. Risen will spend 25.2 billion yuan on power facilities for the factory, including installing 3.5 gigawatts of solar and 1.6 gigawatts of wind, as well as an energy storage site. But Risen Energy didn’t say in a filing with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Monday whether all of the plant’s activities would be powered by clean energy. Risen said recently that it has improved the power conversion efficiency of its high-efficiency heterojunction (HJT) solar module series from 23.08 percent to 23.65 percent, breaking its own HJT world record three times in one year. (SD-Agencies) | 