ersol and NITOL Group sign Polysilicon supply Letter of Intent

Polysilicon back from Siberia beginning in 2008

Earlier this week at ersol's Annual General Meeting on June 5, 2007, ersol Solar Energy AG (FRA:ES6) announced the signing of a Letter of Intent (LOI) with the NITOL Group for an undisclosed amount of Polysilicon through 2012. ersol purports this polysilicon supply is sufficient for incremental production growth of about 140MWp over the four (4) year term. See ersol wins further cooperation partner for silicon supply (Deutsch) for the official press release.

Per Jürgen Pressl, the Management Board member responsible for the ersol Silicon and Wafers divisions, the polysilicon produced by NITOL will undergo comprehensive material testing in 2008 before approval for production subject to the LOI terms.

As I wrote in From Siberia with Polysilicon, NITOL Silicon will leverage internal trichlorosilane production to produce polysilicon using the good, old Siemens process. I suspect NITOL may be planning to provide polysilicon in the form of Czochralski monocrystalline silicon ingots.

My gross estimates indicate the projected polysilicon production represented by this deal averages to at most 350 Metric Tons of polysilicon per year. A widened deal with ersol or additional contracts with new strategic partners may be under discussion or pending proven polysilicon production material.

This is the first major polysilicon supply deal announced with Russian firms to my knowledge since I blogged about NITOL’s Siberian polysilicon and the SiPro Silicon Program in From Russia with Polysilicon.

The presentation from ersol’s Annual General Meeting is available in German (Deutsch) now along with the Präsentation zur Rede des Vorstands. This Speech of the Management Board should be released in English during work week 25 (June 18 to 22, 2007).

And kudos to ersol for having both English and German versions of their tagline:

Right from the start.
Von Anfang an.

From Siberia with Polysilicon

NITOL Group Going solar in a big way

I first wrote about the NITOL Group in From Russia with Polysilicon. Per the recent press release, GT Solar Signs $49M Polysilicon Reactor Contract with Nitol Group, the Nitol Group’s NITOL-Silicon, Ltd. subsidiary is stepping beyond trichlorosilane production and entering the Big Show (American term for Major League Baseball) of polysilicon production. NITOL – Silicon’s production is located at Usolie-Sibirskiy Silicon, Ltd., Irkutsk region.

Per NITOL Group President, Dmitry Kotenko:

GT Solar’s experience in the manufacture of reactors and other PV equipment is a perfect match with NITOL’s experience as a producer of silicon organic gases. NITOL is on track to be the most competitive polysilicon and wafer producer in the fast growing PV industry.

The NITOL Group’s solar ambitions extend beyond polysilicon production and include wafer manufacturing. I expect this development will be a recurring theme on this Blog as traditional competitors and assumptions about the photovoltaic market are challenged by new entrants with complementary diversification strengths and new business models.

It is hard to translate NITOL’s contract with GT Solar into annual polysilicon production capacity in metric tons. I have heard from one source that GT Solar's equipment is very expensive.

I must admit the Program for PHOTON EXPO’s 4^th Solar Silicon Conference looks very strong. John Mott will be presenting the Solar Grade Silicon Production plans of Solarvalue, while Jan Maurits, VP Operations, Poly Plant Project Inc., USA, will talk about the Design and Process Changes for a Solar Grade Polysilicon Plant among many others.

Despite my prediction in Photovoltaic Conference and Exhibition Preview 2007, I was granted an accreditation for the PHOTON Technology Show 2007 in München. Alas, I was unable to obtain a flight that met my schedule and budget constraints before the Easter Holiday. This means I will miss the joint press conference between Solarvalue AG and Moser Baer Photo Voltaic Limited on April 4, 2007, during the PHOTON EXPO at the M,O,C, Lilienthalallee 40, 80939 München, Germany, Halle 4 (Atrium), 1. OG, Room E 125. As I often say these days, “Bummer, Dude!”