ReneSola Ltd., a manufacturer of solar wafers and provider of solar modules, reports that it began shipments of its Virtus wafers and modules in June. ReneSola shipped approximately 54.8 MW of wafers and 20 MW of modules, which are manufactured using Virtus wafers, to a number of European clients.
Virtus wafer production is now operating at an annual capacity of 900 MW, and ReneSola is targeting production on the order of 1.8 GW capacity by the end of the year.
The Virtus wafer, which was introduced in January, is offered in a V-Grade series or an M-Grade series. The V-Grade wafer achieves cell conversion efficiency rates of between 17.5% and 18.2%, and the M-Grade wafer achieves rates between 16.7% and 17%, ReneSola says. June's wafer shipments contained roughly 22.7 MW of V-Grade Virtus wafers and 32.1 MW of M-Grade Virtus wafers.
The company expects the Virtus wafer to have replaced all of ReneSola's multicrystalline wafers by year-end, according to CEO Xianshou Li.
"We will also discontinue approximately 200 MW of monocrystalline wafer production, increasing our focus on multicrystalline wafers and boosting our core wafer business and growing module business," Li said in a statement.