REC Silicon has announced it is ceasing production at its facility in Moses Lake, Washington. The company also closed its polysilicon manufacturing facility in Montana earlier this year. REC Silicon now has no polysilicon operations in the United States.
The company said that while polysilicon production at Moses Lake will cease, the equipment involved in the production of silicon gases will be maintained in a “safe and recoverable mode that incurs minimal intermediate costs, allowing the unit to operate at a reasonable notice period can be restarted.” This would allow REC Silicon to benefit from future customer demand for silicon anode or other gases in the energy storage field.
The company stated that it will now focus its business efforts on silicon gases.
The once globally dominant polysilicon company was on track to be the first step in Hanwha Solutions’ quest to produce solar panels with a 100% American supply chain. REC Silicon polysilicon would be sent to Hanwha’s Qcells factories in Georgia to be turned into blocks. wafers, cells and then panels. Hanwha became REC Silicon’s largest shareholder in 2022 and planned to purchase all polysilicon products made in Moses Lake for 10 years. Hanwha’s investment in REC Silicon allowed the company to restart its Moses Lake operations after pressure from the Chinese market forced REC Silicon to close the site in 2018.
REC Silicon announced to shareholders that it had begun limited production of polysilicon in Moses Lake in late 2023. The company had been working to improve levels of impurities that were “primarily the result of the post-reactor product finishing and handling systems.” This included changing materials, procedures and operating conditions. REC Silicon worked with third parties to evaluate the situation, but was ultimately unable to resolve the issues.
The company received a “failed qualification test” from its customer (presumably Hanwha) earlier this month. This was due to “lower than expected crystallization levels and the ingot yield observed during the test runs, which the customer did not consider acceptable for their production process at this stage.”
REC Silicon said its customer can no longer wait for the delivery of a compliant product, although production efforts at the Qcells molding and wafer plant in Georgia have not yet started. REC Silicon said that because there are no other customers in the United States and only a limited number of customers outside China, the best option is to stop production completely.
REC Silicon said it is now in discussions with its customer regarding the cancellation of its contract, including the “abolition of any penalties and deferment of the refund of the initial prepayment.”
The closure of Moses Lake is effective immediately and could last three months. The workforce there will be reduced accordingly.
