Yesterday U.S. polysilicon, solar and sapphire equipment maker GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT) announced that it had received several new orders for polysilicon production equipment since exiting bankruptcy in March.
The company reports a particularly large order for its hydrochlorination Fluid Bed Reactor for the production of trichlorosilane gas, the feed gas for the production of polysilicon. According to GTAT, this reactor would support the production of more than 12,000 metric tons of polysilicon annually.
Additionally, GTAT reports upgrades to existing hydrochlorination Fluid Bed Reactors and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactors for polysilicon production. GT says that all these orders are from customers in Asia, which probably means China or South Korea.
Since the majority of the worlds wafer production is in China, China is the end-market for most polysilicon. Through import duties the Chinese government has effectively shut out most foreign polysilicon with the exception of Wacker Chemie and South Korean companies.
Electricity use is a main component of polysilicon costs, and GTAT says that its latest generation CVD upgrade can reduce power consumption by up to 25%. The company further states that these improvements and its other technology enable the production of polysilicon at under US$10 per kilogram.
Following the exit from bankruptcy GTAT is traded as a pink sheet stock, and as such the company does not have the same financial reporting requirements as it previously did when its stock was traded on the NASDAQ.
As such, there is no recent public financial information available on the companys activities, and the last monthly report issued showed US$17 million in January 2016 revenue, a strong operating margin and $45 million in cash.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.