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Four international consortiums have submitted their bids to build a 10,000 tonne capacity polysilicon plant to Saudi Arabias’s Idea Polysilicon Company (IPC) on the back of plans to develop a fully-integrated photo-voltaic (PV) supply chain within Kingdom.
The plant will produce a number of polysilicon products including ingots and wafers, but a key market will be Saudi Arabia’s target of 41GW in PV installations by 2032.
Germany’s Centrotherm SiTec, which has already carried out the basic engineering for the plant, remains a likely favourite and has teamed up with dominant force in the construction market, Hanwha Engineering & Construction.
However, bidders also include a China/US consortium between Chengda Engineering Corp and US specialists, Poly Plant Project; a German consortium between hi-tech facility design engineers M+W and equipment specialist Schmid Silicon Technology; and, a US/Korean link-up between polysilicon equipment specialist GT Advanced Technologies and Samsung Engineering.
Contracts are expected to be signed with winning bidders in the fourth quarter of 2013.