The Joint Venture will begin the first silicon production on the Arabian Peninsula
SolarWorld AG announced the purchase of 29 % stake in the newly founded Joint Venture Qatar Solar Technologies, located in the Emirate of Qatar. Qatar Foundation (70%) and the Qatar Development Bank (1%) are partners in the Joint Venture.
The Joint Venture chose the Arabian Peninsula to set up the first production facility for poly-silicon.
The facility’s first stage of expansion plans to provide annual capacity of around 3,600 tons of high-purity polysilicon. The investment in the construction is over 500 million US dollars from Qatar Solar Technologies. They intend to start production in the third quarter of 2012.
Qatar is one of the world’s largest supplier countries for natural gas that has so far been securing its power supply on the basis of natural gas. The new facility is located at the Ras Laffan Industrial City in the North East of Qatar. Here, the Joint Venture has access to an excellent chemicals infrastructure with favorable energy prices. The location is suitable for a forward integration along the entire solar value chain all the way to the finished solar power module. The Arabian Peninsula is beginning to go through a change of thinking which seems to result into a growing market for solar power systems.
SolarWorld AG Chairman and CEO, Frank H. Asbeck stated: „With the conversion of natural gas via electricity into solar-grade silicon the reach of the gas virtually increases by a factor of more than 25 for as long as our solar power modules generate, as guaranteed, clean energy from the sun”. He said this at the contract signing in Doha in the presence of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al- Missned.
This new project is another means for SolarWorld AG to secure the supply of solar-grade silicon. This complements the company’s own production, its own raw materials recycling activities and its long-term delivery contracts.
The technology partner for the construction of the production line is the German company centrotherm photovoltaics AG. SolarWorld AG has previously cooperated with them for the successful development of its manufacturing facilities.
