Asia’s renewable energy market really seems to be booming as reportsindicated (I will write an article soon about China’s renewable energymarket!).

The usual suspect of course is China but I saw several investmentnews in India last week and now this one from Japanese chemical companyTokuyama announced this week that it is building a polycrystalline silicon facility in Malaysia.

Tokuyama has decided to build a new 6,000 tons/year factory inSarawak, Malaysia, to manufacture polycrystalline silicon for solarcells. Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2011, and the startof operations is scheduled for spring 2013.

The factory construction costs will be approximately ¥65 billion ($681.3m).

Tokuyama also established Tokuyama Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. to manufactureand sell the polycrystalline silicon. The company expects to hire 300people at the time of the start-up of operations, about 280 of whomwill be local.

Polycrystalline silicon, according to Tokuyama, is a fundamentalmaterial for the semiconductor industry and is used insingle-crystalline silicon wafers as well as single-crystalline andpolycrystalline silicon solar cells.

Source