1.2GW Solar Complex Coming to Siberia
Greentech Media
A Russian company is hiring several German firms to build a 1.2-gigawatt solar factory complex in southwestern Siberia.
Silarus, a subsidiary of the chemical company Titan, has hired theSchmid Group, Schmid Silicon Technology and EPC Engineering Consultingto build the factory, reported Photovoltaics World. Silarus signed the agreements with the German companies at a raw materials conference in Moscow last month.
The complex reportedly would have a plant capable of producing10,000 metric tons of polysilicon per year. It would also haveproduction lines for wafer, cells and panels. The overall project wouldcost about €1.6 billion ($2.4 billion).
The project is likely to be built in phases. Few companies in theworld have the gigawatt capacity. First Solar in the United States andSuntech Power in China are among them.
Russia hasn’t been a hot bed for solar manufacturing, but it seemsto have that ambition. It’s home to Nitol Solar, a polysilicon producer.
Earlier this year, a Russian investment firm, Renova Group, said itwas teaming up with the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies tobuild a 120-megawatt factory to make solar panels in central Russia (Chuvashia).
The joint venture, called Nano Solar Technology (NST), has ordered equipmentfrom Oerlikon Solar in Switzerland, and plans to start installing it in2010. The equipment would enable NST to produce solar panels that relyon amorphous silicon and microcrystalline silicon to convert sunlightinto electricity.
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