PHOTON International The Photovoltaic Magazine

Solar Grade Silicon and Sumitomo announce Asian marketing deal

Washington State-based Solar Grade Silicon LLC (SGSil) and Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp. jointly announced a long-term agreement on July 28 to market and distribute polycrystalline silicon to solar cell ingot and wafer manufacturers in Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Sumitomo, which has business relationships with several PV companies, was responsible for introducing Sharp modules into the German market. In Dec. 2001, the company also won a contract to supply 6,000 Sharp modules for a 1 MW PV/hydro plant in the Philippines (see PI 1/2002, p.26).

John Hill, SGSil's general sales manager, says the agreement with Sumitomo should increase Asian sales. But with SGSil already manufacturing near full capacity of just over 2,000 metric tons per year, added production may soon be necessary – especially since Hill expects most other suppliers of solar-grade silicon to revert to electronics-grade silicon as the semiconductor industry starts to grow again. While using Siemens reactors, SGSil also has a test fluidized bed reactor for producing solar-grade silicon. Hill says limited commercial quantities should be available next year. »If everything goes well, we'll have full commercialization in 2005.« The target price is $22 per kg. Current prices range from $20 up to $30 per kg. »We're going to try to keep our pricing in line with allowing the solar industry to grow,"« says Hill.

SGSil is a joint venture of Advanced Silicon Materials LLC, a subsidiary of Komatsu Ltd. in Japan, and Silicon Technologies AS, a subsidiary of the Norwegian company Renewable Energy Corp. (see PI 4/2002, p. 28).