A manufacturing unit in Moses Lake, Washington, that closed in 2019 will quickly resume delivery a vital ingredient utilized in most photo voltaic panels that for years has been made nearly completely in China.
Reactivating the manufacturing unit, owned by REC Silicon, may assist obtain a long-standing objective of many U.S. lawmakers and power executives to reestablish a full home provide chain for photo voltaic panels and scale back the world’s dependence on crops in China and Southeast Asia. .
REC Silicon reopened the manufacturing unit, which makes polysilicon, the essential element of the overwhelming majority of photo voltaic panels, in November in partnership with Hanwha Qcells, a South Korean firm that’s investing billions of {dollars} within the manufacturing of photo voltaic panels in the US. . As a part of the deal, Hanwha mentioned this month it has turn out to be the most important shareholder in Norway-based REC Silicon.
Firm executives say they reopened the manufacturing unit partly due to incentives for home manufacturing within the Inflation Discount Act, President Biden’s signature local weather legislation. They expressed hope that their determination will even encourage different firms to revive manufacturing of a know-how that was created in the US about 70 years in the past.
“Total, the US was primary,” mentioned Kurt Levens, CEO of REC Silicon. “Individuals overlook it. Extra cell manufacturing is required outdoors of China.”
Factories in China and Southeast Asia produce greater than 95 p.c of photo voltaic panels utilizing polysilicon and many of the elements that go into these units. Chinese language producers are so dominant that the majority U.S. producers stopped producing polysilicon, together with REC Silicon.
Business executives say the Chinese language authorities’s tariffs on photo voltaic imports and the in depth monetary and different assist it has supplied home producers over time have made it a lot tougher for firms from different nations to compete. locations. A smaller REC Silicon plant in Butte, Montana, and two different main firms (Hemlock and Wacker) nonetheless make polysilicon in the US, however their merchandise are primarily utilized in semiconductor chips.
The Biden administration has used the Inflation Discount Act and different insurance policies to attempt to revive the American photo voltaic manufacturing trade. That has spurred larger manufacturing of photo voltaic panels and different renewable power merchandise.
However the administration’s efforts have been undermined just lately by a pointy improve in manufacturing of photo voltaic panels and their elements in China and an enormous drop in costs for these merchandise. That has been good for panel patrons, reminiscent of power firms which are constructing photo voltaic farms, however has harm American producers.
“Varied commerce actions, oversupply and dumping mainly made it nearly unimaginable to export polysilicon,” mentioned Michael Carr, govt director of the Coalition of Photo voltaic Power Producers for the US, a commerce group. “The polysilicon trade has actually fallen on exhausting occasions.”
The Commerce Committee of the American Alliance for Photo voltaic Manufacturing, a bunch of photo voltaic producers that features Qcells and REC Silicon, on Wednesday requested the U.S. Worldwide Commerce Fee and the Commerce Division to research probably unlawful commerce practices for a part of Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and impose greater tariffs on merchandise they export to the US. The grievance focuses on firms primarily based in China.
Along with the allegations within the petition, photo voltaic producers have raised considerations about the usage of pressured labor in polysilicon manufacturing in China and different Southeast Asian nations, which the businesses say has helped suppliers promote their merchandise at low costs. Many firms within the photo voltaic trade have pledged to keep away from merchandise that depend on pressured labor, however the sources of panels and their elements may be tough to hint and confirm.
The one American photo voltaic producer that has been in a position to keep a wholesome market share within the trade is First Photo voltaic, which produces thin-film panels that don’t use polysilicon.
Researchers and firms are growing different applied sciences, however polysilicon panels, which had been created at Bell Labs in 1954, stay “the spine of the silicon photo voltaic cell,” mentioned Yogi Goswami, an engineering professor on the College. of South Florida and editor in chief. from Photo voltaic Compass, {a magazine} of the Worldwide Photo voltaic Alliance. “Revolutionary folks in America found one thing that nobody else knew might be performed.”
Qcells mentioned it could take one hundred pc of the polysilicon that REC Silicon produced in Moses Lake and deliberate to promote photo voltaic panels that had been produced fully in the US. The corporate manufactures photo voltaic panels in Georgia and introduced in January 2023 that it could make investments $2.5 billion to develop its presence in that state.
REC Silicon processes silicon into polysilicon, a granular substance that resembles black peppercorns. When the corporate delivers its product later this quarter, Qcells will convert these pellets into ingots after which lower them into photo voltaic wafers that can be assembled into panels that may be mounted on rooftops or open land.
REC Silicon started ramping up operations in November, hiring about 200 folks and increasing the manufacturing unit, mentioned Levens, the chief govt. The plant sits on 200 acres in Moses Lake, an agricultural and industrial city roughly within the heart of Washington.
“It is a cleaner, lower-risk resolution, and finally being able to do it domestically is a sensible long-term resolution,” mentioned Danielle Merfeld, international chief know-how officer at Qcells. “We’re a small fraction of the nationwide alternatives. It ought to give not solely policymakers but additionally different photo voltaic producers the arrogance to make the funding. “There’s room for lots of photo voltaic capability to develop on this nation.”
Chuck Sutton, REC Silicon’s vice chairman of world gross sales and advertising and marketing, mentioned he had by no means given up on the ability, which started manufacturing in 1984. “My focus over the previous few years has been to discover a option to restart this plant,” he mentioned. “We simply saved attempting to maintain all of it collectively.”
Throughout a tour of the manufacturing unit this week, dozens of packing containers full of circumstances of polysilicon pellets had been seen on the ground, able to be shipped. REC Silicon executives mentioned they hoped this was only the start of a brand new wave of development for the plant: The corporate owns one other 260 acres that they mentioned might be used to develop its operations.
Executives mentioned they might search for alternatives to supply their product to extra prospects like Qcells which are concerned with producing ingots and wafers in the US. Levens mentioned the federal government might have to supply extra incentives to spend money on manufacturing.
“It is actually necessary for us as a rustic to have the ability to maximize the alternatives that the Inflation Discount Act presents,” he mentioned. “Possibly there must be extra belts and braces when it comes to how to do that.”
