The latest ranking of the top polysilicon manufacturers by the German research company Bernreuter Research shows that four of the world's five largest polysilicon producers are located in China. Although German Wacker Chemie, which also has a polysilicon plant in Tennessee, ranked second on the 2020 list, the company's president said that there is no plan to increase the production of solar-grade polysilicon. Bernreuter Research therefore predicts that by 2022, the top 4 polysilicon manufacturers will all come from China.

Why this is important: People have been worried that China’s Xinjiang province is using forced labor, where most of the polysilicon, the absolute basic building block of solar panels, is already produced. The area is also easy to use coal-fired power plants to generate electricity. It will be difficult for the global solar industry to avoid this relationship.

The top 10 polysilicon manufacturers in 2020 include:

After closing its solar-grade polysilicon business in South Korea last year, OCI ranked seventh. WACKER has been ranked first before falling to second place this year, but it is still the world's largest manufacturer of electronic grade polysilicon in the semiconductor industry. However, compared with its rapidly expanding Chinese competitors, WACKER has no intention of increasing its solar-grade capacity beyond the constant elimination of bottlenecks. On April 30, CEO Rudolf Staudigl said during a conference call regarding the company’s first quarter results: “Of course we are not interested in building incredible new capacity.”

Bernreuter Research predicts that, as a result, WACKER will be surpassed by the other three Chinese manufacturers and fall back to No. 5 in 2022.

Johannes Bernreuter, head of Bernreuter Research and author of "Polysilicon Market Outlook 2024", said: "In our ranking, the rise of Chinese companies is a model of China's polysilicon industry's increasing dominance." Polysilicon production will approach 90% in the next few years. "

In the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China, three companies that are likely to surpass WACKER to enter the top four in 2022-GCL-Poly, Dake and Xinte Energy-are operating factories that use low-cost electricity from coal-fired power plants. After reports about the widespread use of forced labor in the area surfaced, the area was censored.

"These reports should be a wake-up call for Western governments. If their country does not want to rely almost entirely on Chinese solar products in the transition to renewable energy, they must implement an effective and long-overdue solution for non-Chinese solar supply chains. China’s industrial policies, especially the manufacturing of silicon ingots and wafers,” Bernreuter commented. "The low-cost and renewable hydropower in the Northwestern United States, Canada, Norway and Malaysia provides them with opportunities to power alternative supply chains without forced labor and high carbon footprints."

In December 2020, the advocacy organization SEIA asked solar companies to sign a pledge against the use of forced labor in the solar supply chain. The group plans to develop supply chain traceability agreements for materials used in solar modules to help companies track the origin of their products.

Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA, said: "Unethical labor practices go against everything we represent as an industry and against our values." "We have Responsibility to stay vigilant and take measures to ensure that the solar industry is free of forced labor practices. Dozens of companies have stepped up to sign our commitments, and we call on the entire industry to join us."

Kelly Pickerel has more than ten years of reporting experience in the US solar industry and is currently the editor-in-chief of Solar Power World.

Solarworld (Sunpower) closed its single crystal foundry in Hillsboro, Oregon. I visited the factory and was impressed by their quality and technology. Unfortunately, when Sunpower took over the loss of an important US wafer manufacturer and many jobs, the factory closed.

Thanks for this informative article. When you write "...the vast majority of polysilicon-the absolute basic building block of solar panels...", do you mean a module with polycrystalline cells? As far as I know, most modules have monocrystalline cells. Does China’s dominance of polycrystalline silicon apply to them?

Yes. Polysilicon is the basic component of silicon-based solar panels and is the most popular type of solar panels on the market. Silicon is used in single crystal and polycrystalline cells.

Okay, thanks for your quick reply. When it was used in monocrystalline cells, when they called it polysilicon, I found it confusing. However, I think this is its industry name. I hope the United States can stand up and restart production here.

Miller, your suspicion is true. Polycrystalline silicon is the basic high-quality silicon raw material for single crystal and polycrystalline (sometimes called py crystal) solar cell modules. (Remember: polycrystalline is different from polycrystalline silicon). Yes, polysilicon is the basic silicon raw material. Monocrystalline silicon solar cells/modules are more efficient than polycrystalline silicon solar cells/modules. As the solar industry rapidly shifts to higher-efficiency modules, high-quality, high-purity (11N) silicon is required, especially in the manufacture of monocrystalline silicon (PERC) solar cells. Therefore, this indicates that polysilicon wafers will soon be eliminated. Please also note that many Chinese polysilicon producers, except for a few top (four) companies, have failed to produce high-purity polysilicon... In addition, China has failed to produce the low-carbon polysilicon that US/EU companies are producing. What does it mean? Chinese companies, especially Chinese silicon producers, especially those in Xinjiang, use electricity that emits very high carbon dioxide emissions... So, yes, American and EU companies have a greater chance of supplying high-quality polysilicon Leading.

Thanks to Ms. Pickerel for this important article.

I want to know which companies (if any) sell solar panels in the United States that use only ethically sourced component products? If I recommend buying panels, which panel manufacturers can I ask the installer to use?

Thank you very much, David Page

There is REC in the United States, which itself is a silicon foundry basically driven by hydrogenation in Washington. Obviously, a lot of money has been invested in China's silicon wafer supply chain. After the tariffs are removed, REC is seeking to "supply" the industry again.

My hope for the United States is thin-film solar photovoltaic power generation. First Solar has been prosperous in the development and application of CdTe thin-film panels. We keep hearing about the efficacy of tandem perovskite (one day), and First Solar has changed from a 12% efficient product to an 18.3% efficient product, and can provide a 25-year (linear) degradation warranty. Perhaps First Solar may also be the first method to use tandem or ternary solar cells, or to use multi-junction solar cells used in space. Usually six junctions can collect 47% of the sunlight in space to power satellites. The energy efficiency of the push film is much higher than that of silicon, from the wafer to the injection cell, and then assembled into the panel. First Solar now seems to be manufacturing their panels through spraying and fusing operations. Just recently, IBM created a transistor technology that reduced the number of 2nm transistors compared to the previous record holder of 7nm. This precision in an automated solar cell production line is not only the key to multi-junction solar cells, but also the key to breaking through long-lasting solar photovoltaic arrays with solar collection efficiency of 30% or higher.

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