$1 billion Tenn. plant to produce solar panel component

03/04/2009

By Candy McCampbell

Wacker Chemical Corp. announced last week that it plans to invest more than $1 billion to build a polysilicon manufacturing plant near Cleveland, Tenn.

It is the second announcement in three months about construction of a polysilicon plant in Tennessee.

Wacker Chemical, based in Adrian, Mich., is the North American arm of Wacker Chemie AG, a worldwide chemical manufacturing company based in Munich, Germany.

The plant, which will produce hyperpure polycrystalline silicon for the solar and semiconductor industries, will be located on 550 acres near Interstate 75.

It will have 500 employees.

Plans for the plant “are not on the drawing board yet,” Bill Toth, company spokesman, says. So any engineering or building contracts are still “down the road.” He says the plant will be the largest of Wacker’s 10 production facilities in North America.

Company officials have said construction will take two to three years, about the same as the competitor Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. plant, a $1.2 billion polysilicon operation in Clarksville that was announced last December.

The Wacker plant — the company’s first solar cell manufacturing outside Germany – will get more than $75 million in incentives from state and local government for infrastructure, job training and tax credits.

Rudolf Staudigl, president and CEO of Wacker Chemie, cited the size of the site, the availability of TVA power, an “over-the-fence” chlorine supply from the OLIN Corp. plant next door and transportation infrastructure for the location decision.

Electrical costs in Tennessee are about half those in Germany, he says in a statement.

The plant site is about 30 mi northeast of Chattanooga.

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