Sustainability Report - Bank Sarasin-Alpen

Solar Energy 2005
con supply bottleneck is therefore unlikely to improve much before 2008 at the
earliest.
Silicon and wafer manufacturers are exploiting the current shortage to force cell
producers into making long-term supply agreements. These include purchase
commitments over several years and in some cases even involvement in the
pre-financing of new silicon production plants. SolarWorld, for example, has
safeguarded its raw material supply by concluding 10-year contracts with the silicon
producers Hemlock and Wacker.
Expansion plans of
silicon producers
REC and Solar Grade Silicon as
‘pure players’ for solar-grade
silicon
Only seven large companies are involved in silicon production worldwide, most
of them part of big chemicals conglomerates. They supply silicon to both the
semiconductor and the solar energy industry. The companies most active in the
manufacture of solar-grade silicon include Hemlock (USA), Wacker (Germany)
and Tokuyama (Japan). In 2004 all three companies supplied a large proportion
of their production to the PV industry and are also striving to expand these capacities
further. In 2004 their combined production came to approximately
18,000 tonnes of polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon), with a target of more than
33,000 tonnes in 2010.
The only company that has so far specialised exclusively in the production of solar-grade
silicon is the US company Solar Grade Silicon LLC (SGS), which is
part of Norway’s REC Group. In 2004 SGS produced 2,100 tonnes of solargrade
silicon, and plans to expand this capacity to 2,300 tonnes in 2005. A pilot
plant with a capacity of 200 tonnes is currently in service, in which a new fluidised-bed
reactor is being tested. If the results are positive, an additional 1,000
tonnes of production capacity could come on stream by 2007. There are plans to
increase this to around 5,000 tonnes by 2010. As of the end of July 2005, REC
also owns 75% of the US silicon producer ASiMI (Advanced Silicon Materials
LLC), which has a capacity of 2,400 tonnes. This production will gradually be
made available to the solar industry.
A newcomer to the scene is Norway’s Elkem, which plans to produce solargrade
silicon using a metallurgical process. It hopes to produce around 2,000-
5,000 tonnes next year. However, it’s not yet certain whether the silicon really
will be pure enough to meet solar industry requirements.
In addition Joint Solar Silicon (JSSI) – a joint venture between Degussa and SolarWorld
– has produced its first prototype plant for making solar-grade silicon.
Annual capacity should be in the region of 800 tonnes in 2007.
New association for
solar-grade silicon
Solar industry caught between
booming demand and silicon
supply bottleneck
One very promising development is the newly founded European Solargrade
Silicon Association. The purpose of this association is to invite tenders for solargrade
silicon production whose output will be destined solely for the PV industry.
The founding members are PV Crystalox, Deutsche Cell, SolarWorld and Schott
Solar. Membership of the association is open not only to the silicon processing
industry, but to companies that produce solar cells and silicon.
The current industry situation is rather unusual: capacity utilisation is usually determined
by demand, but this is not the case here. Demand for solar modules is
robust and rising, but companies are still unable to increase their cell and module
production capacities because there is not enough solar-grade silicon avail-
Dezember 2005 9