Sharp to double solar cell output in UK

LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - Japan's Sharp Corp (6753.T) is investing almost 4 billion yen ($46 million) at a plant in Britain to double production of solar cell modules to meet growing demand across Europe.

Sharp Solar UK, which began making cells at the plant in Wrexham, Wales in 2004, said it was also seeing increased demand from the British market following the introduction of subsidies for renewable energy installations in April.

"This time last year 99 percent of the modules that we manufactured at Wrexham were exported to Europe and that has alresdy dropped to 90 percent," Andrew Lee, General Manager of Sharp Solar told Reuters.

"The feed-in tariff has given confidence to manufacturers like ourselves to invest."

The plant currently employs 750 people and Sharp will add an extra four production lines to take capacity up to 500 Megawatts by Feb. 2011.

Lee could not yet say how many new jobs would be created at the plant, which currently has five production lines.

Sharp earlier on Thursday reported a swing into profit for the April-June quarter, thanks to healthy consumer demand for LCD televisions, PCs and mobile phones. [ID:nSGE66S0B7] (Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Andrew Callus) ($1=87.54 Yen)