More Polysilicon For Solar Cells

South Korean chemical firm OCI and Germany’s Wacker Chemie are each investing about $1.5 billion to increase production of polysilicon for solar cells. The combined additional annual capacity of 42,000 metric tons will help to meet increasing worldwide demand, experts say.

OCI says it will invest $1.6 billion in a 20,000-metric-ton plant at its site in Kunsan, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea. The facility will be completed by October 2012. In addition, OCI will increase its output at an existing polysilicon plant by 7,000 metric tons. The company forecasts that it will be the world’s largest polysilicon supplier by late 2012 with a total capacity of 62,000 metric tons.

Separately, Wacker has disclosed details about a planned facility near Cleveland, Tenn., that the firm first announced in February 2009. To cost $1.5 billion, up from about $1 billion originally, the plant will have capacity for 15,000 metric tons and create 650 jobs when it is completed by the end of 2013. In January, Wacker received a $128.5 million U.S. tax credit for the plant as part of an American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 program designed to spur manufacturing in the clean-energy sector.

Wacker anticipates continued double-digit annual growth in polysilicon demand by the solar industry. “We are convinced that our customers’ demand for top-quality polysilicon will continue to increase in coming years,” Wacker CEO Rudolf Staudigl says.

The past three years have been bumpy ones for makers of polysilicon and the solar modules they go into. In 2008, government solar subsidies created a quick rise in demand, but “there was a constrained polysilicon supply because bringing on new capacity requires a very long lead time,” explains Jason Eckstein, a research associate at emerging technologies consultancy Lux Research. In 2009, oversupply led to a price collapse for polysilicon and solar modules (C&EN, Nov. 9, 2009, page 28). But this year, an increase in solar installations in Germany contributed to a doubling of global demand and helped stabilize prices.

“We’ll see prices continue to tick up, and the market will grow more modestly,” Eckstein predicts. “The outlook looks good for Wacker and OCI to reap the benefits of increasing polysilicon prices.”

Chemical & Engineering News

ISSN 0009-2347

Copyright © 2011 American Chemical Society