The profit was in line with preliminary results the company unveiled in February.
However, revenue fell 67.7% year on year to 559.9 million yuan, as the company shifted its focus away from sales of solar-related products in favour of higher-margin sales of PV-generated electricity.
Revenue from sales of solar-generated electricity accounted for the lion’s share of Kong Sun’s annual income in 2016, at 554.4 million yuan, up sharply from 118.03 million yuan a year earlier. Kong Sun’s electricity sales for the year were slightly lower than the 561 million yuan forecast it issued last month.
The group owned 1.15 GW of solar capacity at 26 sites throughout China by the end of December, according to a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. It connected 680.8 MW of fresh PV capacity to the Chinese grid in 2016.
Its biggest provincial market in the country was the vast Xinjiang region, where it was operating 240 MW at 11 locations by the end of December. That was followed by 230 MW of operational assets in Shaanxi province, in addition to 160 MW in Anhui province and 159.5 MW in Gansu province. Kong Sun had another 430 MW of solar in varying stages of development at the end of 2016 in Shaanxi, Hebei and Shandong provinces.
Its solar projects were valued at 9.28 billion yuan by the end of 2016, from 4.42 billion yuan a year earlier.
Despite the rapid growth of its grid-connected PV portfolio, Kong Sun said its financing costs rose by about 188.2 million yuan on the year in 2016.
The company – which started out in the real-estate sector – stormed into PV investment in 2014, after raising approximately $296 million in a share placement.
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