CLASS OF 2016
WORLD-GENERATION FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016
17
Founded in Shanghai, China in 2006
and publicly listed on the New York Stock
Exchange in 2010, JinkoSolar has grown to
position itself, as a top three solar PV man-
ufacturer in sales volume for 2015, up from
number ten in many markets just three
years ago, according to Nigel Cockroft,
general manager of JinkoSolar (US) Inc.
headquartered in San Francisco.
Cockroft’s team in San Francisco has
contributed significantly to that success, pro-
ducing a 50-fold increase in product sales
over the past three years having shipped
over 1,000 MW in the US alone in 2015.
GLOBAL REACH
JinkoSolar’s global reach includes sales
in more than fifty countries, with regional
offices in Germany, Italy, Canada,
Switzerland, Australia, Japan, and Africa. Its
manufacturing plants, located in China,
Malaysia and South Africa, produces an
annual solar module production capacity
exceeding 5 GW.
The vertically integrated company
manufactures polycrystalline modules for
the US market with a strong focus on prod-
uct reliability, efficiency and on-time deliv-
ery. JinkoSolar’s latest product, JinkoMX,
uses integrated circuit optimizers to direct-
ly address the issues of panel shading, hot
spots and mismatch, minimizing the possi-
bility of panel degradation.
JinkoSolar’s sub company, Jinko Power,
develops, builds and operates solar farms in
China, now totaling more than 1 GW in
operation. “This business is rapidly expanding
and Jinko is doing preliminary development
in other countries,” Cockroft said.
US SUBSIDIARY
JinkoSolar opened its US subsidiary in
2010 with Cockroft joining in late 2012. The
company’s growth is powered by very good
local customer support and logistics,
Cockroft said. Each major customer is
assigned a project manager and is offered
financial, technical management and legal
support. “We have local US control, and
we consistently do what we say we will do,”
he said.
Cockroft received his PhD in Physics
in New Zealand and relocated to the US in
1987. He built upon a seven-year R&D man-
agement role at Los Alamos National
Laboratory concentrating on lasers and
photonics. Later, he joined a Silicon Valley–
based fiber optics company, serving in
executive management roles in develop-
ment, production, sales and marketing.
Cockroft joined the solar industry five
years ago, working with three other
Chinese companies before coming to
JinkoSolar where he put together the high
performance team in San Francisco.
The majority of JinkoSolar’s US busi-
ness in the past four years has involved
sales of PV modules to utility scale projects
with just 10% of its sales to residential and
commercial customers. In 2015, more than
1,000 MW were shipped in the US,
Cockroft said, including supplying over 100
MW of panels each for two separate proj-
ects. “Our sales in 2016 should be substan-
tially higher in the utility space. Our goal is
NIGEL COCKROFT
General Manager
JinkoSolar (US) Inc.
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