* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Top 5 entertainment news: Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming Animal’s runtime by 7-8 minutes, Akshay Ku – Times of India

    Top 5 Entertainment Highlights: Sandeep Reddy Vanga Reveals Why He Trimmed Animal’s Runtime by 7-8 Minutes, Plus Akshay Ku Updates

    Cote de Pablo reveals how Michael Weatherly used his soap opera roots to put her at ease in “NCIS” love scene – yahoo.com

    Cote de Pablo Reveals How Michael Weatherly’s Soap Opera Background Made Their “NCIS” Love Scene Easier

    City of Pelham announces entertainment district plans for former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre site – WVTM

    Pelham Unveils Exciting New Entertainment District Plans for Former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre Site

    Black Box Players presents ‘The Three Musketeers’ – CBS 19 News

    Experience the Adventure: Black Box Players Bring ‘The Three Musketeers’ to Life!

    AP Entertainment SummaryBrief at 1:51 p.m. EDT – Channel 3000

    Entertainment Highlights: Key Updates You Can’t Miss

    ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ casts Anne Hathaway’s love interest replacing Adrian Grenier’s Nate – Entertainment Weekly

    Devil Wears Prada 2′ Casts New Love Interest for Anne Hathaway, Replacing Adrian Grenier’s Nate

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology

    Eagle Unveils Revolutionary X-Ray Technology at Pack Expo

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Behind the Screens: The Impact of Technology on Real Estate – TRREB

    Behind the Screens: How Technology is Transforming the Future of Real Estate

    Sustainserv and Palau Announce Technology Partnership to Leverage Innovative AI Platform to Advance Sustainability Reporting – Business Wire

    Sustainserv and Palau Team Up to Transform Sustainability Reporting with Breakthrough AI Technology

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Top 5 entertainment news: Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming Animal’s runtime by 7-8 minutes, Akshay Ku – Times of India

    Top 5 Entertainment Highlights: Sandeep Reddy Vanga Reveals Why He Trimmed Animal’s Runtime by 7-8 Minutes, Plus Akshay Ku Updates

    Cote de Pablo reveals how Michael Weatherly used his soap opera roots to put her at ease in “NCIS” love scene – yahoo.com

    Cote de Pablo Reveals How Michael Weatherly’s Soap Opera Background Made Their “NCIS” Love Scene Easier

    City of Pelham announces entertainment district plans for former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre site – WVTM

    Pelham Unveils Exciting New Entertainment District Plans for Former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre Site

    Black Box Players presents ‘The Three Musketeers’ – CBS 19 News

    Experience the Adventure: Black Box Players Bring ‘The Three Musketeers’ to Life!

    AP Entertainment SummaryBrief at 1:51 p.m. EDT – Channel 3000

    Entertainment Highlights: Key Updates You Can’t Miss

    ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ casts Anne Hathaway’s love interest replacing Adrian Grenier’s Nate – Entertainment Weekly

    Devil Wears Prada 2′ Casts New Love Interest for Anne Hathaway, Replacing Adrian Grenier’s Nate

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology

    Eagle Unveils Revolutionary X-Ray Technology at Pack Expo

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Behind the Screens: The Impact of Technology on Real Estate – TRREB

    Behind the Screens: How Technology is Transforming the Future of Real Estate

    Sustainserv and Palau Announce Technology Partnership to Leverage Innovative AI Platform to Advance Sustainability Reporting – Business Wire

    Sustainserv and Palau Team Up to Transform Sustainability Reporting with Breakthrough AI Technology

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home News

‘Game changer’: Highland Materials to invest in US polysilicon production amid plummeting market prices

May 7, 2024
in News
‘Game changer’: Highland Materials to invest in US polysilicon production amid plummeting market prices
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Highland Materials plans to start construction at the project early next year and reach commercial operation in late 2026. This timing fits with new solar wafer production in the US, which will likely take two years to get underway.

Richard Rast, president of Highland Materials, tells PV Tech Premium that the company will use a unique segregation technique instead of the most common method of polysilicon production, the Siemens process.

Rast says this process uses metallurgical-grade silicon as its feedstock to create polysilicon, which other firms can then use to make solar wafers.

Historical connections

Highland Materials’ technique evolved out of the aluminium alloy industry and was demonstrated in a factory in Canada back in 2011-12 by a company whose technology is now incorporated into Highland Materials.

“That’s what’s different about the approach that we use,” says Rast. “So, in really simple terms, we’re melting silicon and aluminium together and using a naturally occurring process of segregation, where the impurities in the silicon migrate into the aluminium.”

The Highland Materials management team includes several former leaders of Silicor Materials, which was formed by California-based Calisolar’s acquisition of Canadian company 6N Silicon. The leadership team can draw on a range of experience across the North American silicon sector.

For example, Silicor operated a large-scale pilot polysilicon production project in Canada between 2010-2014, and brought a factory in Iceland close to construction, with funding and engineering work complete. However, when silicon market pricing collapsed in 2016-2017, the project was discontinued and has been dormant ever since.

Highland Materials is a new company that acquired the technology from Icelandic investors, who had invested in Silicor, and is building on top of the silicon purification process engineering work and material science work developed by these former companies back in the 2000s.

“It is a little different than the way people do today, but it enjoys a lot of benefits,” says Rast. “One of the reasons that we were able to secure the funding is because of the opportunity for innovation.”

Keeping up with n-type efficiency trends

However, this has been a challenging sector for other companies in the past. Those working on upgraded metallurgical silicon technology in the past “never really got into massive commercial production” and “it was a bit of failure”, says Jenny Chase, solar analyst at BloombergNEF.

Chase remains sceptical about the potential for future innovation in the sector, because the market has moved on. Instead of industry focusing on multicrystalline wafers for solar modules, today’s market is dominated by monocrystalline, which requires a higher degree of purity.

Likewise, when Silicor worked on polysilicon production in 2010-11, the PV industry’s focus was on p-type solar cells, which required lower purity polysilicon than the high-efficiency n-type solar cells that have become the norm today.

Yet if Highland Materials can make this technology work, it would be a step forward, as it should be produced with a lower energy per kilogram than the Siemens process, or the alternative fluidised bed reactor technology, which is technologically difficult, and intensive for both energy capex.

‘It’s like blended whisky’

When asked about the push for high-purity polysilicon for high-efficiency solar cells, Rast says the company had material leftover from its Canadian factory stored at Fraunhofer ISE in Germany and has proven through tests that even the polysilicon produced in 2010-11 by the Canadian factory would have met the n-type specifications of the present day.

The company has been working for a year to produce new cells that meet the n-type specification, and has done tests with labs in the US, France and Germany to verify performance. In addition, the US’ National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has been tracking actual performance of cells produced as far back as 2012 to verify that the silicon is holding up as a functional equivalent of silicon produced from the Siemens process.

Highland Materials is now working with wafer manufacturers and cell producers, and sharing the results of the test work done in Europe with third parties, such as Fraunhofer ISE and French Lab CEA, over the last six months. It is working on a variety of different opportunities for off-takers, but Rast could not provide further information on this.

Rast does note, however, that company’s product would not require the blending of polysilicon from multiple sources, despite blending being a very common process in the production of wafers, as it allows producers to minimise waste by using scraps leftover from the ingot process, and acquire materials from multiple suppliers in the supply chain.

“It’s like blended whisky,” says Rast. “You get the same mix at the end of the process every time regardless of what happened in one individual barrel. There are practical aspects to it and there are consistency aspects to it.”

A US supply chain

The Tennessee project was made feasible by US trade restrictions and the incentives offered through the IRA, which created an economic opportunity to build new production capacity in the US that’s focused predominantly on the US market.

“There’s a huge opportunity for new polysilicon capacity within the US or within North America,” adds PV Tech head of research Finlay Colville. “Potentially, it’s more important for the US to have polysilicon manufacturing than it is a lot of the new module capacity that’s going in at the moment, with a large part of funding from Chinese companies making modules in the US.”

Given how close polysilicon is to the start of the value chain, to have new entrants gain investment, who are focused specifically on serving the solar industry, rather than the semiconductor industry, could be “a game changer” for US aims to have a value chain of US-made product for its own market, says Colville.

For years there has been very little new investment in the western world or outside China for new polysilicon capacity. German polysilicon producer Wacker and Korean firm OCI, which has a plant in Malaysia, have built no new capacity for solar in over a decade.

US firm Hemlock Semiconductor’s focus has always been the semiconductor industry, rather than solar. Meanwhile, US-based REC silicon has had its plant in Moses Lake mothballed for a few years until recently.

Chase notes there have been a couple of polysilicon announcements in India, but remains “dubious” about these ventures given the difficulties of making polysilicon.

“So, for a new company to raise funding to manufacture polysilicon specifically in the US for the solar industry is a big deal,” adds Colville.

International tensions

However, while Rast hopes that Highland Materials will be able to explore markets outside the US, polysilicon manufacturing has been difficult for companies around the world since China retaliated against US anti-dumping countervailing duties on Chinese and Taiwanese PV modules back in 2013, with an import duty on polysilicon coming into China.

This hit the businesses of Hemlock and REC silicon to the point where REC Silicon had to shut down its operations in Moses Lake. Eventually, says Colville, due to almost 100% Chinese domination of wafer production, companies wanting to sell polysilicon to the solar industry would have to ship into China, so doing so became almost economically unviable.

This situation would have persisted were it not for the introduction of the IRA, and the expansion of wafer and cell manufacturing in the US, to create a market to which polysilicon could be sold.

“The IRA now is driving the sales channel for US-made polysilicon without having to ship outside the US,” adds Colville.

The Tennessee facility announcement comes at a time where polysilicon prices continue to decline and are expected to decline further while the prices of wafers, cells and modules have also fallen rapidly in succession, as reported by PV Tech Premium’s PV Price Watch this month. Moreover, the prices have even fallen below production costs of some companies.

“It’s still going to be challenging to make good margins when manufacturing,” warns Colville. “Polysilicon pricing has been trending downwards. At present, pricing in China is well below US$10 per kilogram.

“The likes of Wacker, Hemlock, have got premium right now because that polysilicon is used for modules that end up back in the US selling at a higher price. So, there is a kind of 2x premium at present on western-made polysilicon, but there’s no guarantee that that premium is going to be around in three years’ time. With any investment there’s risk and this is no different.”

“This is probably essential to enable a US supplied energy transition, if they really want to get serious about it,” adds Chase. “It’s taking a risk and potentially, the payoff would be getting a new manufacturer with new tech in America. The key to China’s success is it actually builds the factories instead of talking about [it]. It turns out, it’s very hard to make anything if you don’t build any factories.”

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : PV Tech – https://www.pv-tech.org/game-changer-highland-materials-us-polysilicon-production-prices/

Tags: -GameChangernews
Previous Post

Italy bans solar on agricultural land

Next Post

Cypress Creek Renewables brings online 208MW solar-plus-storage plant in Texas

Flutter Entertainment Announces Pricing Of $1.272 Bln Of Additional Senior Secured Notes Due 2031 – Nasdaq

Flutter Entertainment Raises $1.27 Billion with Senior Secured Notes Due 2031 in Major Financing Deal

July 27, 2025
KFF Health Tracking Poll: Public Views on Recent Tax and Budget Legislation – KFF

How the Public Really Feels About the Latest Tax and Budget Changes

July 27, 2025
Dollar falls against yen as markets weigh new trade deal, Japanese politics – Reuters

Dollar falls against yen as markets weigh new trade deal, Japanese politics – Reuters

July 27, 2025
Clinch County Schools prepare for students’ return with new policies, technology – WALB

Clinch County Schools Prepare for Students’ Return with Exciting New Policies and Cutting-Edge Technology

July 27, 2025
Highlights: Xfinity Series at Indy on The CW – NBC Sports

Unforgettable Thrills Ignite the Xfinity Series at Indy

July 27, 2025
Yellowstone aspen showing signs of recovery following 1995 reintroduction of wolves to park – Oregon State University

Yellowstone Aspen Thriving Again Years After Wolves Were Reintroduced

July 26, 2025
CMC trustees approve new biological science bachelor’s degree – KUNC

CMC Trustees Approve Exciting New Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Sciences

July 26, 2025
By cutting science, the Defense Department is eating its seed corn – Defense News

Cutting Science Funding: How the Defense Department Is Jeopardizing Tomorrow’s Innovation

July 26, 2025
Opinion | Lifestyle Interventions Should Not be Replaced by GLP-1s – MedPage Today

Why Lifestyle Changes Must Stay the Cornerstone-Not GLP-1s

July 26, 2025
World’s most premature baby celebrates first birthday – The Guardian

World’s most premature baby celebrates first birthday – The Guardian

July 26, 2025

Categories

Archives

July 2025
MTWTFSS
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031 
« Jun    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (740)
  • Economy (764)
  • Entertainment (21,645)
  • General (16,127)
  • Health (9,803)
  • Lifestyle (772)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (766)
  • Politics (774)
  • Science (15,979)
  • Sports (21,262)
  • Technology (15,746)
  • World (747)

Recent News

Flutter Entertainment Announces Pricing Of $1.272 Bln Of Additional Senior Secured Notes Due 2031 – Nasdaq

Flutter Entertainment Raises $1.27 Billion with Senior Secured Notes Due 2031 in Major Financing Deal

July 27, 2025
KFF Health Tracking Poll: Public Views on Recent Tax and Budget Legislation – KFF

How the Public Really Feels About the Latest Tax and Budget Changes

July 27, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version