SKC (Park Jang-seok, CEO) held a groundbreaking ceremony to begin construction of a solar cell materials plant in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province. In attendance were more than 200 people from in and outside of the company, including SKC Chairman Choi Shin-won and President Park Jang-seok, North Chungcheong Governor Chung Woo-taek, parliamentarian Chung Bum-koo, and Jincheon County mayor Yoo Young-hoon. The plant will house production lines for EVA and back sheet for solar cell batteries. EVA sheet and back sheet are materials used in solar cell modules: the former seals both ends of the solar cells, and the latter protects cells from the back of the module, thus allowing the module to generate solar power for an extended period of time.

World’s first plant for integrated production of core materials for solar cells

SKC is already producing polyester film, fluoride film and EVA sheet at its Suwon plant. With the construction of the new EVA sheet plant in Jincheon, the company will become the only firm in the world that produces all types of film for solar cell batteries. Moreover, with SKC Solmics set to mass produce poly silicon wafers within this year, SKC will thus secure the capacity to provide a ‘total solution’ in the solar cell materials area, which will contribute to boosting the competitiveness of the domestic solar cell industry.

Company aims to attain sales of over 500 billion won in solar cell materials field in 2015

President Park Jang-seok said, “The construction of the solar cell material plant will become a watershed for SKC, allowing it to leap forward toward transforming into a global green material company. The company will grow into an enterprise attaining more than 500 billion won in sales in the solar cell materials field alone in 2015.” He went on to emphasize that what is more important than simply expanding production scale is to continue to develop new high-tech materials and thus make contributions to upgrading Korea’s solar cell industry.

SKC will have a total of 10 EVA sheet production lines, including the existing one line, three new lines now under construction in Korea, and six lines to be built in the company’s global production _ base_s, including the U.S. The company will thus have a collective production capacity of 60,000 tons per year, as it aims to secure a 25-percent share of the global market. It aims to secure 10 percent of the global back sheet market as well.