Having already planned to complete construction of its silicon wafer fab in China next year, Motech Industries has updated that maximum ingot capacity at the site will reach one peak gigawatt (GWp), according to company general manager YH Tso.
Tso indicated that the entire Suzhou silicon wafer plant will eventually house a maximum ingot capacity of 1GWp. Motech has targeted a solar-cell capacity of 1.2GWp across all its plants for 2010. While aggressively boosting its silicon wafer capacity, Tso noted that price pressure of polysilicon should persist.
Tso projected that polysilicon will be in severe shortage in the first half of 2008 with improvement to be seen in the second half of the year along with fresh capacity from leading players. Capacity from new entrants will only be available in the first half of 2009 at the earliest.
Although polysilicon supply is set to pick up from 2008, fresh capacity from leading players will be obtained by those who have long-term contracts with the suppliers, or those who have investment relationships with these companies, Tso said. For the anticipated capacity from new entrants, cost, which eventually translates to price, will be hard to shrink further, as these players mostly produce via the traditional Siemens method.
In light of the supply status and cost trend, Tso stressed that it will be hard to see per kilogram polysilicon prices drop below US$40 over the next decade, yet, he added in saying that more capacity will have an obvious impact over pricing at the spot market in the future.
General manager from Motech updated that the company will house a maximum capacity of 1GWp in 2010
Photo: John Hsu, Digitimes
Article translated by Esther Lam and edited by Ricky Morris
