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REC breaks ground on new polysilicon plant in Washington state
October, 2006: Executives of Norway's Renewable Energy Corporation ASA (REC) and its subsidiary Solar Grade Silicon on Aug. 16 ceremoniously turned the soil in a groundbreaking event for a new 6,500 metric ton polysilicon plant in Moses Lake, Washington (see PI 6/2006, p. 110).
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© Columbia Basin Herald
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Breaking ground: Executives of Renewable Energy Corporation start construction of a new polysilicon plant at their Solar Grade Silicon subsidiary in Moses Lake, Washington.
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REC estimates that the approximately $600 million facility will bring its total polysilicon manufacturing capacity to nearly 13,500 tons – including 7,000 tons at its existing plants in Moses Lake and Butte, Montana. Final completion of the new plant and ramp-up is expected in the third quarter of 2008.
REC‘s existing plants produced 5,300 tons in 2005. But the company expects debottlenecking at both plants to increase production to 7,000 tons. On Sept. 20, REC announced it would invest $50 million in Butte to modify one-third of its Siemens reactors and increase polysilicon production by about 1,000 tons in the first quarter of 2008.
Based on REC‘s fluidized bed reactor technology, the new plant in Moses Lake will produce granular polysilicon for companies such as wafer, cell, and module manufacturer Evergreen Solar, which requires granular feedstock for its string-ribbon process, and with whom REC is an equal partner in the EverQ joint venture with Q-Cells in Thalheim, Germany (see PI 7/2006, p. 10). REC inked an $87 million supply agreement with its EverQ partners for 7,400 tons of granulated polysilicon over seven years.
According to REC, the new plant will bring 100 new permanent jobs to Moses Lake, a small eastern Washington town of about 16,000 where the company already has a workforce of 250 at its existing plant. As many as 900 construction workers will be employed during plant construction.
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