Daqo New Energy Begins Polysilicon Production At New 4B Facility

Daqo New Energy Corp, a leading Chinese manufacturer of high-purity polysilicon for the global solar PV industry, today announced that it had completed the construction ahead of schedule and begun pilot production at its new 35,000 MT Phase 4B polysilicon production facility. The Company expects its Phase 4B polysilicon production facility to gradually ramp up to full production capacity and to increase its total annual production capacity to 105,000 MT by the end of the first quarter of 2022. Founded in 2007, Daqo manufactures and sells high-purity polysilicon to photovoltaic product manufactures, who further process the polysilicon into ingots, wafers, cells and modules for solar power solutions. It is one of the world’s lowest cost producers of high-purity polysilicon.

Daqo New Energy Corp, at no.3 in the global pecking order for polysilicon producers, will notionally move up to no. 1 position with this expansion, if the two firms above it, Tongwei and Germany’s Wacker donot expand capacities quickly.

The Global polysilicon market size has comfortably exceeded 5 year projections of a size of $8.9 billion by 2021. It is expected to close this year at closer to $10 billion.

Longgen Zhang, CEO of Daqo New Energy, commented, “We are very excited to have completed the construction in our new Phase 4B polysilicon production facility. We have already successfully harvested the first batch of polysilicon produced in the new facility. It is a great achievement for us to complete the project ahead of schedule given the significant difficulties and challenges resulting from the resurgence of COVID-19. This would not have been possible without the dedication and expertise of our outstanding team and various suppliers who have set up a new benchmark of excellence for the Company and the industry. We expect to ramp up the new Phase 4B facility to full capacity by the end of March 2022.”

“2021 is a milestone in the solar PV history when grid parity has been broadly achieved. The urgency to tackle climate change has led to broad policy support from major economies globally. With the rising prices of fossil fuels, solar PV is becoming more competitive and its economic value is being increasingly recognized by the market, as reflected by the increased prices of solar products this year, a rare occurrence in the solar PV history. We believe we are just at the beginning of a new era in which solar PV will play an increasingly critical role as one of the cleanest, most sustainable, and most cost-effective sources of energy. We expect to see accelerating growth in solar demand in the foreseeable future.”

“As one of the first-tier high-quality polysilicon providers, we will continue to execute our three-year plan to expand our production capacity to 270,000 MT by the end of 2024, to meet the world’s urgent need for cost-effective and clean non-carbon energy generation. At the same time, we will continue to improve our product quality to be market-ready for the next generation N-type technology. With the proceeds from the successful IPO of our subsidiary, Xinjiang Daqo, on China’s A-share market, our proven strong execution capabilities, deep understanding of our customers’ needs, and our advantages in cost structure and product quality, we have a strong foundation to continue to serve the fast-growing solar PV market and create value for our shareholders.”

Every addition to global polysilicon production will be welcomed at this stage, although there is still no clarity on China’s power shortages which exacerbated a tough supply situation three months back.