Bitterfeld poly plant owner pays €12m to offload facility

Share

UK polysilicon manufacturer PV Crystalox Solar has been forced to hand over a €12.3 million (US$16 million) sweetener to a new management team to avoid having to decommission its German poly plant at Bitterfeld.

A company spokesman told pv magazine the decision to hand over the plant plus the golden welcome was cheaper than having to refund grants and subsidies awarded by the German regional government and the EU.

"The grants and subsidies were linked to employment for a minimum of five years," said the PV Crystalox spokesman, "if the plant closes and the jobs are lost within that period, the monies have to be repaid with interest.

"The new management team want to take the plant in a new direction which is outside our business area so this is the best deal for all parties."

In a press release announcing the management ‘buy-in' at Bitterfeld, Crystalox said the grant liabilities amounted to around €18.4 million.

Crystalox CEO Iain Dorrity was quoted as saying the buy-in would enable ‘some jobs to be maintained' at the plant although no specific figures were given.

The company spokesman added: "The new management team will have to decide on staff numbers but they will be bound to keep a certain number of employees by the conditions of the grants and subsidies."

PV Crystalox employed around 110 staff at Bitterfeld until polysilicon production stopped in November 2011. The decision to idle the 1,800 ton facility prompted a €78 million pre-tax loss at the plant in 2012.

Plunging polysilicon prices and global oversupply have seen the Oxfordshire company reduce staff numbers to less than 50 from an average of around 130 before the price falls.

Crystalox produces ingots and blocks at its Abingdon facility which are wafered either in-house at Erfurt, in Germany or by subcontractors in Japan.

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Popular content

Testing to start on 100 MWh sand-based thermal battery in Finland

13 November 2024 Finnish startup Polar Night Energy is building an industrial-scale thermal energy storage system in southern Finland. The 100-hour, sand-based storage...

Share

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.