SolarWorld AG has taken over the silicon wafer production of the Japanese Komatsu Group, which had invested 600 million EUR at Hillsboro, OR (the location where this facility is to be built) to produce computer chips, and no far away from Intel's largest chip manufacturing plant in the world. SolarWorld has been able, however, to purchase the plant for as little as 30 m euros. 'The new investment in
Komatsu's investment had never gone live in terms of production due to the fall in the price of chips, however SolarWorld will now further develop the facility with an investment of 300 million EUR. That makes 900 million euros (or almost $1.2 billion) invested in this facility as a whole. The federal state of
The new plant will boast an innovative technology: 'In this process the technological know-how from the mono-crystalline technology taken over from the former Shell companies will be employed for the first time. With our new
SolarWorld has planned to move its solar crystallization activities from
In the first phase, the production capacity will be limited to 100 MW. However, the German company, which is among the world's top three producers, has announced that in 2007 it will also double the capacity of its specialized solar module production site at Camarillo, CA to 100 MW. SolarWorld will thus achieve a production capacity in excess of one Gigawatt during this year.
No doubt, the module shortage era seems to be over.
For additional information: www.solarworld.de
