July, 2008: Poseidon Solar Services Pvt. Ltd., which has been a subsidiary of German Solar-Fabrik AG for two years, has opened a new factory to handle silicon recycling in India.
This investment is aimed at expanding Solar-Fabrik¡¯s business area of silicon processing, especially as a service for other cell producers. »We want to redefine this area of business,« explains company spokesman Martin Schlenk.

The new factory is located in Chennai, India, where Poseidon already operates a reprocessing plant. The company¡¯s new plant will increase its overall annual recycling capacity to more than 600 tons of scrap material from the current level of 150 tons. At the same time, the company will open its reprocessing facilities for other cell makers. They can deliver their scraps to Chennai and get solar silicon in return. But the idea is not new, as German companies Ersol Solar Energy AG and SolarWorld AG each offers such services through subsidiaries, and numerous other companies, primarily in China, such as LDK Solar Hi-Tech Co. Ltd., are starting major operations ­in this field. The Chinese wafer maker Renesola Ltd., which recently listed on the New York Stock Exchange, announced that it would open a second 1,000-tons recycling factory in Malaysia. That increases demand for useable scraps from the solar and semiconductor industries, which Solar-Fabrik also wants to source through its subsidiary Global Expertise Wafer Division Ltd. (GEWD).

In the new production facility, the scrap material will be automatically sorted based on size and resistivity, and mechanically cleaned first using a sand blaster and then with a chemical bath. Up till now, Poseidon has processed broken wafers and cells from its own 10 MW cell production factory in Singapore and material it purchased for its own use. That barely utilizes any of the recycling capacity that is currently available. The company has not said where the additional raw material will come from. It is only saying that Solar-Fabrik sees the chance to establish itself as a silicon supplier with the advent of its new production line. It will only expand its cell line when the supply through scrap material is secured for a potential expansion, Schlenk says. But that is what is at stake right now, since Hoku Scientific Inc. announced a funding gap for its planned silicon factory (see PI 6/2008, p. 100). But last year Solar-Fabrik announced that the supply contract with the US-based company is a prerequisite for additional growth. »Securing this supply of polysilicon from Hoku Materials through 2016 will enable us to execute on our global expansion strategy,« Solar-Fabrik said in June 2007. In the last few years, Solar-Fabrik has been unable to come close to fully using its module capacity ¨C mostly on account of a lack of solar cells. While other, even considerably newer companies in the sector, have grown much faster, the long-time module producer from Germany even lost its place last fall in the PHOTON Photovolatic Stock Index (PPVX), which contains the 30 largest pure PV companies. On May, 5, Solar-Fabrik announced a first-quarter turnover of €53.1 million ($82.6 million), an EBIT of €3.25 million ($5.05 million), and a mere 6-percent EBIT margin.

Given this background, the use of recycled silicon in its own cell production would be a good fit. Unless, of course, the cell production is not competitive. Often, it is »simply more profitable to sell the silicon to China and to not even send it through our own lines,« says Schlenk.

 By Neelke Wagner