US polysilicon manufacturer REC Silicon expects to ship the first solar-grade polysilicon from its Moses Lake, Washington facility by the end of June.
In a public statement, the company said that it “continues its ramp-up activities by improving, optimising, and increasing the production capacity at the Moses Lake facility”. Full operational production at the site is expected by the end of 2024, with the first shipment expected before the end of Q2.
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It continued: “Currently, most of the key quality measures for the product have been met. Process clean-up, tuning and internal/external testing continue, and the focus remains on achieving all key parameters necessary for the Company to make the first commercial shipment of its high-purity granular polysilicon.”
In September 2023, REC Silicon signed a supply agreement with Korean-owned solar manufacturer Hanwha Qcells to ship fluidised bed reactor (FBR) granular polysilicon from the Moses Lake plant to Qcells’ new US manufacturing base in Georgia. The value of the deal is expected to be around US$3 billion.
In February this year, the company announced a plan to cease operations at its other polysilicon facility in Butte, Montana, after a grace period to fulfil existing orders. REC Silicon said the shutdown was due to high electricity prices in the region, which made the energy-intensive polysilicon production process untenable.
Indeed, the challenge for upstream suppliers in the US solar market is considerable. This announcement of imminent production at Moses Lake follows a call from the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America (SEMA) coalition for “aggressive” support for polysilicon and wafer manufacturing in the US from the federal government.
SEMA – a trade body representing many US-based, non-Chinese solar manufacturers – said that the upstream portions of the supply chain were the key elements to sustaining a healthy solar manufacturing ecosystem in the US.
Currently, over 90% of global solar-grade polysilicon and solar wafer capacity is concentrated in China, or in Southeast Asia under Chinese-owned companies, according to data from Bernreuter Research. Moreover, global polysilicon supply is far in excess of demand, which has driven prices down to historic lows. In its Q1 2024 financial results, major Chinese polysilicon producer Daqo New Energy predicted that “many market players” in the poly and wafer sectors are likely to go bankrupt, as the sector sees drastically lowered revenues.
Nonetheless, earlier this month a relatively unknown company – Highland Materials – secured US$255.6 million in government tax credits to support a new polysilicon plant in the US.