CENTESIL: A Pilot Plant for R&D in Polysilicon
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1210-Q05-06
CENTESIL: a Pilot Plant for R&D in Polysilicon C. del Cañizo1,3, A. Rodríguez2,3 and G. Ovejero2,3, A. Luque1,3 1 Instituto de Energía Solar, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid, Spain 2 Departamento de Ingeniería Química, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid, Spain 3 Centro de Tecnología del Silicio Solar, Eric Kandel 1, Getafe, Spain ABSTRACT The tremendous expansion and the relative avidity for silicon of the solar cell technology have resulted in a dramatic change of the polysilicon industry structure. While in the past the polysilicon was manufactured almost exclusively for the semiconductor industry, in 2008 around 67% of the total production was consumed by the solar industry. The consequence is that while in 2000 virtually only 7 companies supplied all the polysilicon consumed worldwide, in 2008 there were 11 major suppliers and numerous new ventures entering this market. Based on this in 2006 CENTESIL was founded as a new private-public partnership venture to deal with the polysilicon research. For it, a pilot plant is in advanced state of construction that has been preceded of some laboratory-size implementations. The pilot plant is designed for a production capacity of 8300 kg of trichlorosilane per day and 2 t of purified silicon per batch at the CVD reactor. The purpose is to allow the photovoltaic companies worldwide to count with an independent research centre to help them to establish their own polysilicon plant. The R&D activities already carried out by CENTESIL and the present status of the project are discussed in the paper. INTRODUCTION Silicon being the workhorse of the current expansion of Photovoltaic (PV) technology, the market for ultrapurified silicon (which is typically called ‘polysilicon’), that was traditionally devoted to microelectronics, is currently subject to profound changes due to the expansion of the PV market. In 2008, a total amount 47,700 t of polysilicon were consumed by the solar industry vs 22,300 by the semiconductor industry [1], and the share of polysilicon for solar will for sure increase in the medium and long run, as the perspectives of growth for the PV industry are very solid [2]. The consequence is that while in 2000 virtually only 7 companies supplied all the polysilicon consumed worldwide, now this concentration does not make sense any more, since even for a medium size PV company producing 100 MWp/a, it is worth having their own silicon feedstock factory, in the range of 1000 t/a. The avidity of polysilicon of the PV companies has made them live in a complex situation in the last years, as the traditional suppliers were not prepared to attend their quickly growing demands. That produced a scenario of scarcity of polysilicon, which made prices climb up to the hundred of dollars level, shrinked the capacity expansions already planned by a great number of PV companies, and put into trouble to those which were not able to secure their polysilicon feedstock. Traditional polysilicon suppliers reacted
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