PV panel manufacturer, REC Solar, continues to operate its production plant in Singapore at full capacity due to continued strong demand from its core markets of Europe and Japan.
However, Luc Graré, senior vice president, sales and marketing told Solar Power Portal that in reporting first quarter 2014 financial results, 53% of sales were generated in Europe and 37% in Japan – with the UK being its largest single market within Europe with 70% of European sales.
Key to the strong growth in UK sales, according to Graré was strong demand from large-scale ground-mounted PV power plants, while residential demand remained stable.
The REC Solar executive said he expected the UK market to remain strong for the next two years and that the UK market provided a stable business environment for the company.
REC Solar reported Q1 2014 sales of US$175.4 million and a profit of US$16.2 million.
The company is expanding capacity by 300MW later in the year, taking panel production capacity to 1.3GW by the end of the second quarter of 2015 to meet demand.
The panel manufacturer is also planning to introduce further high-performance panels in the 280W range as well launch a novel ‘half-cut’ cell-based panel that was displayed last year at Solar Energy UK.