Germany’s Wacker plans solar wafer JV

20 July 2007 17:43  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS news)--Germany’s Wacker Chemie said on Friday it was in advanced talks on a joint venture to make solar wafers.

 

The venture, with German glass maker SCHOTT, could start up this year, making multicrystalline silicon ingots and solar wafers, which are a precursor for solar cells, Wacker said.

 

Solar wafer production capacity could reach one gigawatt/per year by 2012, it added.

 

Wacker did not disclose investment costs or where production would be located.

 

A spokesman at the company’s headquarters in Munich declined to provide additional comment on Friday.

 

Wacker last month announced a €400m ($555m) investment to triple production of polysilicon - a raw material needed to make solar wafers - at its site in Burghausen, Germany.

 

($1 = €0.72)

By: Stefan Baumgarten
+1 713 525 2653

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