ITS To Buy Q-Cells' Non-Prime Solar Cells

Q-Cells SE (QCE.DE) and Innotech Solar (ITS) announced a long-term strategic partnership.

Q-Cells SE will sell all of its non-prime solar cells–ones with visual or electrical imperfections–to ITS for conversion into PV solutions worldwide under the ITS brand name.

"The strategic partnership with ITS is a very promising way to make best use of our non-prime solar cells. ITS has the know-how and capacity to process these cells into very attractive modules and systems. Q-Cells’ focus remains on providing the very highest quality branded solar cells and modules, with precisely defined product characteristics, which we offer to our customers or process into our own modules,” Timothy P. Ryan, Sales Director Europe of Q-Cells.

The two companies also agreed to a transfer of certain reworking assets and staff from Q-Cells in Thalheim.

ITS said the opportunity to take over some of the resources from Q-Cells is a perfect way to expand its capabilities fast.

ITS said it is broadening its supplier portfolio and in parallel building up production capacity to handle non-prime solar cells from the cell producers. Capturing these cell volumes is ITS’ core competence and helps the PV industry as a whole decrease cost by improving production efficiency.