According to foreign media reports, a company named Bila Solar (hereinafter referred to as Bila) recently announced the construction of a photovoltaic module factory in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
Bila will spend more than $35 million to build a new headquarters and manufacturing plant, renovate and equip the existing 150,000 square feet of space, and then open in mid-2024.
The new facility is capable of producing 1GW of innovative glassless , frameless (flexible) PERC silicon modules per year, which equates to approximately 5,000 high-capacity modules per day.
Although the construction scale of the project is not large, Digital New Energy DNE noticed that on Bila's official website, the founder column was written as "Godfather of Photovoltaic"-Shi Zhengrong. People who know
a little about the history of photovoltaics may know that Shi Zhengrong's reputation as the "Godfather of Photovoltaics" is closely related to his brilliant experience. Shi Zhengrong has witnessed many glories of China's photovoltaic industry in the past, and at the same time, he has followed the industry to a low ebb. However, regardless of the reputation of the outside world, he is still the ambitious photovoltaic godfather Shi Zhengrong. In January
2001, Shi Zhengrong, who returned home with 400000 yuan to start his own business, founded Wuxi Suntech Solar Power Co., Ltd. in Wuxi, which is still tied to the "myth" label, developed rapidly after its establishment and successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2005. This is not only the first photovoltaic industry in China, but also the first private enterprise in China.
In 2013, Wuxi Suntech, which had gone through the financial crisis, fell in the wave of Europe and the United States. In the same year, Shi Zhengrong resigned as chairman of Suntech Power and left the company. Shi Zhengrong, who
left Suntech in Wuxi, did not leave the photovoltaic industry. He took away the Asian BVI, which controlled Shi Zhengrong's comeback weapon, the Asian Silicon Industry.
Asian silicon industry was founded in 2006, at the beginning of its establishment, it had a close relationship with Wuxi Suntech, which was in the limelight at that time. Suntech not only signed an unconditional payment contract of $1.5 billion for 16 years in less than one month after the establishment of Asian silicon industry, but also invested in Asian silicon BVI through its subsidiary in 2009. Wuxi Suntech holds a 20% stake in BVI. In December
2010, affected by the financial crisis, the price of polysilicon plummeted, and Suntech in Wuxi completely withdrew from the BVI. Five months later, Shi Zhengrong and his wife took over 91.33% of the shares of Asian Silicon BVI through overseas trust and became the actual controllers of Asian Silicon Industry. In
the following years, through many equity transactions, Shi Zhengrong and his wife still controlled 78.58% of the company's shares and were the actual controllers of the company before the Asian Silicon Industry sold itself to Red Lion Cement in March 2023.
The company, which bears the back of the Godfather of Photovoltaic, ranked sixth in the industry in terms of polysilicon production capacity before the change of ownership, and its production capacity in 2022 was second only to Tongwei, Xiexin Technologies, Daqo Energy, Xinte Energy and Oriental Hope.
The industry speculated that Shi Zhengrong's sale of Asian silicon shares in its heyday was related to the failure of the company's three previous sprint IPOs. At the end of
2020, the Asian Silicon Industry launched its IPO and planned to raise 1.5 billion yuan , all of which were invested in the "60000t/a Electronic Grade Polysilicon Phase I Project" . The total investment budget of the project is 2.499 billion yuan, the construction period is 1.5-2 years, and the annual production capacity of polysilicon can be increased by 30000 tons after completion. In November
2020, the listing application of Asia Silicon was accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange. In March
2021, the audit was suspended due to the expiration of financial information, and resumed three months later. At the end of March
2022, the Shanghai Stock Exchange suspended its issuance and listing review again because the financial information recorded in the application documents for the issuance and listing of Asian Silicon Industry had expired and needed to be submitted. On April 29,
2022, after completing three rounds of inquiries and replies, Asia Silicon and its sponsor Ping An Securities submitted to the Shanghai Stock Exchange the application documents for withdrawing the initial public offering of Asia Silicon and listing on the board. According to the relevant provisions, the Shanghai Stock Exchange decided to terminate its public offering and listing audit.
The Asian silicon industry has suffered three setbacks in entering the A-share market. The failure of
the listing may not be enough for Shi Zhengrong to sell Asia Silicon, but it makes sense to add that Asia Silicon BVI and Shi Zhengrong signed a betting agreement with other shareholders of Asia Silicon before the sprint listing .
According to the issuance documents, Asia Silicon BVI and Shi Zhengrong signed a gambling agreement with other shareholders of Asia Silicon if Asia Silicon fails to publicly issue shares and list in China before December 31, 2022. The controlling shareholders and actual controllers of Asia Silicon jointly and severally repurchase all or part of the company's equity held by the investor.
The equity transfer transaction, or for the Asian silicon industry three times to stop the IPO, failed to achieve the goal of listing on time, the actual controller needs a huge amount of repurchase funds to support. In March
2023, Shi Zhengrong transferred 53.5445% of the shares to Red Lion Holdings, and the total transfer price is estimated to be around 11 billion yuan. Shi Zhengrong, who
fell on polysilicon twice, went abroad to do his old job of photovoltaic modules, and this time he turned his attention to flexible modules.
According to Bila's official website, Bila & nbsp; Solar & nbsp; was founded in Singapore in 2014, currently has a global installed capacity of more than 500MW, operates a 1GW photovoltaic manufacturing plant in Asia, and plans to expand to the United States. Building a factory
in the United States is the first step in the company's expansion. The main product of the
new plant is the new lightweight solar module, which will be officially launched at the RE + event in Las Vegas, USA, from September 11 to 14 this year.
According to public information, Bila & nbsp; The new lightweight solar module will combine the reliability and high efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells with the lightness of specially designed and patented aerospace composites, which weigh only 30% per panel and are 95% thinner than traditional glass modules.
This also allows such products to go beyond traditional limitations and be installed in places where traditional solar modules can not reach-low load-bearing roofs and curved surfaces.
Bila official website product introduction
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