SolarWorld AG is consistently implementing its group-wide production capacities expansion targets. Deutsche Solar AG will almost double its capacity for the manufacture of wafer-thin silicon discs to 350 Megawatts (MW) by the year 2008.
To accomplish this goal, the SolarWorld subsidiary has constructed its new factory building at the integrated production location of Freiberg, Germany, over the last nine months. The topping out ceremony will be celebrated today, and the Federal Minister for the Environment, Sigmar Gabriel, will be attending.
“The realization of our ‘Millennium Building’ to double wafer production is the largest expansion project of the group in Freiberg to date,” explained Prof. Dr. Peter Woditsch, Chairman of the Board of Deutsche Solar AG. “The employment of the latest technologies will make it possible to lastingly increase efficiency in wafer production and to save raw materials in this way. Thus, we will lead the market trend towards thinner and thinner wafers.”
In the new factory, a highly advanced set of machines from our in-house development will be employed that will turn crystallized silicon into high-quality silicon columns and wafers. Initially the production capacity will be increased from currently 180 MW to 220 MW. “The investment volume into buildings, infrastructure, machines and the expansion of crystallization will amount to some 80 million EUR for this first step. Another 80 million will be required for the expansion to 350 MW” Dr. Woditsch added. Dr. Woditsch also mentioned that “the current capacities are being fully utilized.”
SolarWorld AG CEO Frank Asbeck stated, “Investments are paid from profits. With our investments into new solar capacities, we are showing which way our profits are going. In purely computational terms the 80 million EUR investment is equivalent to the sum total of all the profits of the last few fiscal years. The money we are spending on new factories has been earned by our work fort he further technological development of solar production and by realizing economies of scale. Without reasonable profits, such investments into the jobs of tomorrow would not be possible in the first place.”
The new factory will offer a usable floor space of 21,000 square metres on three levels including the basement. More than 20,000 cubic metres of earth were excavated and more than 3,000 tons of steel used in the building process. In the future, there will be a direct link between the wafer factory and the downstream solar cell production stage, thus the processing flows of the integrated solar production of the SolarWorld Group will be further optimized.
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