Local banks have come together to finance Qatar’s first solar-grade polysilicon production plant, a planned $1.1 billion, 8,000-metric-ton facility being built by Qatar Electricity and Water (QEWC), and Qatar Solar Technologies (QSTec), a joint venture of the Qatar Foundation that supports efforts to transform the Gulf Coast country’s economy from a carbon-based to a knowledge-based one.
China’s new 12th Five-Year Plan clearly shows that rather than striving to comply with internationally agreed-upon trade rules, the Chinese government is intent on dominating solar PV and wind energy manufacturing globally. China’s new plan will direct some $1.5 trillion into solar PV manufacturing export, with polysilicon, thin-film CIGS solar PV producers and equipment manufacturers now squarely in its sights.
Research and analysis of solar PV manufacturing costs and international trade flows shows that Chinese silicon solar PV manufacturers have only a slight cost advantage on their US counterparts, and that excludes transportation costs, the effect of inflation rate differentials and other factors.
Furthermore, the extraordinary rise in Chinese exports of silicon solar PV cells and panels to the US could only be sustained with the support of massive government subsidies.
Germany’s Centrotherm Photovoltaics has signed an agreement with IDEA Polysilicon to construct the Middle East’s first polysilicon solar PV manufacturing facility in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast city of Yanbu. The agreement aims to provide IDEA the technology and know-how it needs to become a market force in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region, a market that’s attracting more and more interest from industry players globally.
