South Perth-based Prime Solar Pty Ltd is in the process of setting up a polysilicon manufacturing facility at Thalheim, Germany’s ‘solar valley’, to produce 7,000 metric tons of polysilicon a year.
South Perth-based Prime Solar Pty Ltd is in the process of setting up a polysilicon manufacturing facility at Thalheim, Germany’s ‘solar valley’, to produce 7,000 metric tons of polysilicon a year.
The news follows Prime Solar’s bid last year to set up a wafers manufacturing facility at Thalheim, which has proved unsuccessful due to an inability to secure polysilicon feedstock from polysilicon manufacturers.
Prime Solar managing director and chief executive, Dr Dilawar Singh, told WA Business News the company had no choice except to set up its own polysilicon manufacturing facility after being knocked back by the manufacturers.
“Demand for polysilicon is over-stripping the supply and therefore there is no polysilicon available with any of the existing polysilicon manufacturers,” he said. “Some of them announced expansions but all new capacities are booked in advance for at least 10 years.
“[Development of the polysilicon manufacturing facility] was a hard decision to make as there was a big investment involved. The board of Prime Solar took the appropriate and timely decision to set up both the polysilicon and the wafers manufacturing facilities.”
Dr Singh said the estimated project cost for both the polysilicon and wafers manufacturing facilities would be about 985 million euros.
“This cost will be met through private equity, advances against the wafers supply for 10 years and the German government’s non-refundable grant,” he said.
The polysilicon manufacturing facility is expected to be completed in two stages of 3,500 metric tons each, with the product on the first stage to commence in the second half of 2008.
“It will be a captive project producing polysilicon feedstock for Prime Solar’s wafers manufacturing facility of 765MW per annum capacity,” Dr Singh said.
The company is currently negotiating an equity investment with two investment groups, one in Australia and another in France.
The silicon wafers to be produced in Germany, commonly known as silicon chips, are the base components for the fabrication of solar cells.
The wafers produced will be used in the manufacture of silicon solar cells. The company recently invited expressions of interest for the supply of wafers under a 10-year wafers supply contract and received a good response from various solar cells manufacturers from Europe and Asia.
The company expects stage one of the 380MW per annum wafers factory to be completed in July 2008, while stage two of 385MW/year will be completed in 2009, aggregating the total wafers production to 765MW/year.
In November 2006, Prime Solar made necessary applications for grants to the state government of Saxony-Anhalt.
The company will build on land at the Micro Technology Park at Thalheim, just next to the manufacturing facility of Q-Cells for setting up of the wafers manufacturing.
“Q-Cells is among five companies which has expressed interest under the new terms and conditions,” Dr Singh told WA Business News.
When the wafers facility plans were announced last year, Dr Singh said Germany was chosen due to the availability of up to 45 per cent in non-refundable German government grants, a subsidised, well developed project site and other forms of support.
“Although there are some schemes for providing incentives for research and development and installation of a solar system on the roofs in Australia, neither the federal government nor the Western Australian government have any funding scheme which can support the manufacturing of the facility,” he said at the time.
