Norwegian company REC Silicon announced that its restarted Moses Lake plant in Washington State, USA, has completed construction, and the first batch of ultra-high-purity commercial polysilicon will be shipped by mid-October this year.
The company stated that the plant is "operating well," with production conditions meeting commercial shipping standards, and the purity level has reached a customer-acceptable level. However, due to customer qualification processes, shipments will be delayed until mid-October. Founded in 1996, REC is a long-established photovoltaic (PV) company and was once a leading global polysilicon giant. The Moses Lake plant was shut down in March 2020, impacted by the trade negotiations between then-US President Donald Trump and China. In June 2022, the company announced plans to restart the plant, with production set to resume in November 2023.
REC previously signed a 10-year "take-or-pay" supply agreement with South Korean company Qcells for high-purity fluidized bed reactor granular polysilicon. The latest update from REC cautiously stated that the construction related to the plant’s restart has now been fully completed, and it will supply ultra-high-purity polysilicon to the U.S. solar value chain, as well as a large volume of silane gas for the rapidly growing battery industry. CEO Kurt Levens commented, “We are about to open a new chapter for the plant, working towards continuous quality improvements to exceed, enhance, and optimize market standards. We still have a lot of work ahead, and we will strive to reach full commercial production capacity as soon as possible, while maintaining our focus on product quality.”
In February of this year, REC Silicon announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary REC Advanced Silicon Materials LLC would close its polysilicon plant in Butte, Montana, due to a structural regional imbalance between power supply and demand.
Source：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/H0sUCVwdWvg1FySasf0b6w