SunEdison has started solar material production using its poly-silicon technology to lower costs of solar equipment.
This is a revolutionary technology in solar field, which will enable SunEdison to deliver a 400 watt solar panel at a cost of $0.40 per watt by 2016.
The technology is known as high pressure fluidized bed reactor (HP-FBR) that produces high purity, highly efficient polysilicon, using 90 percent less energy compared to non-FBR technologies.
This technology requires minimum natural resources and capital in limited space, offering a sustainable method to produce poly silicon which will reduce the cost of the raw material to less than $0.05 per watt peak by 2016.
SunEdison is now producing this technology at Ulsan in joint venture with SunEdison Semiconductor and Samsung Fine Chemicals.
This technology represents a significant competitive advantage for the company. With the successful startup of this proprietary HP-FBR technology a target is kept to meet the goal of producing significantly lower cost, semi-grade polysilicon, Shaker Sadasivam, president, CEO, SunEdison Semiconductor.
The capacity of the Korean plant was designed for 10,000 metric tons (MT) per year and later enhanced to 13,500 MT. The plant will be operating at full capacity in the first quarter of 2015.