A number of Taiwan companies are ramping up their production, or planning to venture into the production, of solar cells amid the rising prospects of the solar energy industry, according to industry sources.

Motech Industries, Taiwan’s largest maker of solar cells, is building its second solar cell-manufacturing plant, which will have a production capacity of 200 MW (megawatts) a year when construction of the new plant is completed in April 2006, according to company sources.