Chinese panel maker and solar energy solution provider ET Solar is in talks with investment banks to raise $250 million through an initial public offering in the US, CEO Dennis She said on Monday in Nanjing in East China.[Photo / dfic.cn]

Chinese panel maker and solar energy solution provider ET Solar is in talks with investment banks to raise $250 million through an initial public offering in the US, CEO Dennis She said on Monday in Nanjing in East China.

"As the company has made considerable achievements in global engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and solar power plant solution services, we want to transform it into a 100 percent downstream solar-station construction and operation entity, based on our expertise and strong financing ability in the global market," She said.

ET Solar, based in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, developed and completed 130-megawatt solar plants last year, the most powerful of all the Chinese plants, and it aims to raise that number to 300 megawatts in 2014, She said.

The installation is still low if compared with global leader First Solar, which installed about an 1 gigawatt plant in 2013, but She believed advantages including cost control and efficiency will make his company a leader in the global market by 2018.

Chinese solar companies have been struggling with shrinking overseas market demand, excessive supply and trade barriers. Most companies are looking in two directions: either to explore the domestic market, which has a huge potential and is backed by the government's determination to develop a green economy, or to stretch to a downstream EPC and energy solution segment, which stresses vertical integration and generates higher added value.

Solar power station in NW China's Qinghai	China's PV plants hungry for financing