NANJING, China, Nov. 19 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- China Sunergy Co., Ltd. ("China Sunergy") (Nasdaq: CSUN), a specialized solar cell manufacturer based in Nanjing, China, announced today that it has started mass production of its selective emitter cells after successfully commissioning recently arrived production equipment. Commercially produced selective emitter cells yielded an average efficiency rate of 17.5% during the first few days of mass production.
Prior to starting mass production, China Sunergy achieved 18.2% conversion efficiency on some of its pilot runs in early November.
Commenting on the announcement, Dr. Jianhua Zhao, CTO of China Sunergy, said: "I am delighted that we have managed to develop and commercialize these high-efficiency cells in less than a year, and am confident that as we refocus our R&D resources we will be able to achieve similar success with other high- efficiency cell products. As we continue to optimize our selective emitter cell equipment and technology, I also believe that we should be able to achieve average efficiency rates of 18% on future commercial batches of these cells."
Commenting further, Dr. Allen Wang, CEO of China Sunergy said: "I have always believed in the technological advantage China Sunergy holds and this is strong evidence that our R&D efforts are starting to pay off. We will continue to drive further efficiency from these cells going into 2008 and will be adding an additional four production lines during the second-half of the year, as we look at ways to expand our margins going forward."
