• Please describe your role at JA Solar and your expertise in the sector?

With over 16 years in sales, business development, and supply chain management in the PV solar market and advanced engineering and construction management in the Middle East (ME) region, I have gained my professional experience from working in an international business environment. My role as ME Sales Director is to deliver state-of-the-art products to our clients with a spirit of excellent craftsmanship to meet our vision and achieve our strategic goals in the region.

• How did your story in solar begin and in your opinion, how much has it changed since then, if at all?

I remember the first solar project I have worked on as the project was in 2010 in UAE. Over the last eleven years, the solar market grew from a niche technology struggling to a dominant and reliable source of new energy. The most important development during this period is how fast prices have fallen. The cost of modules has fallen by almost 70% since 2010, making solar projects more competitive with other sources of energy. In addition to the cost decline, solar modules technology has improved significantly in the past decade in which higher-efficiency mono modules are replacing multi-silicon modules. 

The new decade will see the global solar energy industry tapping into innovative technologies to enhance long-term project performance while continuing to lower system costs.

• What is unique about the products and solutions provided by your company?

As you know, JA Solar is one of the leading solar manufacturers in the world. We always focus on high-efficiency modules as we are the patent holder of PERC technology. We were one of the first manufacturers to start producing 500+W modules in mass production from 2020. JA Solar keeps producing and promoting high-performance modules. We strictly focus on the quality of our products as a priority throughout the entire production process which includes raw materials qualifications, modules design, manufacturing quality inspection, and testing using leading-edge technology and advanced devices from ingot, wafer, and cells to modules. JA Solar continuously carries out technology innovation to upgrade product property. Our manufacturing facilities are automated, intelligent, and integrated which proves the premium assurance and provides an important guarantee for product quality.

JA Solar continuously keeps technology innovations and product upgrades by providing high quality, high efficiency, and cost-effective PV products to our valued customers and lighting up the new era of solar energy with lower LCOE solutions. Having said that and integrated with the belief of “high-efficiency, reliable, and environment friendly”, JA Solar launched DeepBlue 3.0 modules with lower LCOE but creating more customer value. DeepBlue 3.0 adopts 182mm large sizing wafers which brings power generation benefits. The new generation PERCIUM+ cells significantly improve power generation performance under a high-temperature operation environment and low-irradiance conditions.

Deepblue 3.0 has gained valued recognition from global customers for its excellent power generation performance. By the end of 2021, cumulative global shipments of DeepBlue 3.0 exceeded 12GW across 86 countries and regions around the world.

• What could you tell us about JA Solar’s growth opportunities in the region? 

Given the fact that the ME region is in the developing stage these days, JA solar has successfully installed more than 1.3GW in the ME region (UAE, Jordan, Oman, KSA, Bahrain, and Egypt) which we always maintain 10-15% market share in this region. Most of the countries in ME have set ambitious renewable energy goals. If they are to be realized, the region will have to deploy more than 50 GW of solar PV by 2030. We are committed to building on this success and accomplishing a great achievement.

• What does MESIA’s collaboration mean to you and JA Solar?

We are proud to be one of MESIA’s members as they have successfully managed to build a strong platform to promote solar in the ME region and enrich collaboration opportunities between the markets’ stakeholders (utility companies, developers, EPC, and suppliers). Since its establishment, MESIA has played a vital role to bring the main players in the market to share their knowledge and exchange experience between the stakeholders.