Air Liquide: Consolidating Leadership in Photovoltaic Industry

Air Liquide becomes the main supplier to the three largest photovoltaic production sites worldwide

28-May-2009 - China

In a period of significant consolidation, leading Photovoltaic (PV) manufacturers continue to invest in new capacity to cope with the next phase of demand growth, expected during 2010.

In this context, Air Liquide significantly enhanced its leadership position by signing several new contracts since January 2009 with solar cell manufacturers in 5 countries and will invest globally €13 million to meet the needs of those customers.

Amongst those, Air Liquide became the partner of two of the largest solar science parks in the world, having a production capacity of more than 1,000MW per year each:

- In Singapore, Air Liquide will supply all carrier and specialty gases as well as on-site services to REC’s new Gigawatt wafer and solar cells production campus. This project is the largest Photovoltaic investment underway in South-East Asia, with a planned combined production of 1,500MW pa. REC is supplier of Si materials to the PV industry with planned Poly-Si and Si wafers global capacity of more than 20,000 tons per year and 2,000MW per year respectively.

- In Wuxi, China, Air Liquide signed a contract to supply carrier gases to Suntech Gigawatt-size existing facilities. Suntech is the world’s second largest solar cell manufacturer with production capacity exceeding 1,000 MW pa, according to the company.

Those two contracts, combined with the existing supply of the PV market leader Q-Cells in the biggest production site worldwide in Germany and also in Malaysia announced on 19 January 2009 make Air Liquide the number one partner of the 3 largest production sites in the world, according to the company.

In parallel, multiple long-term supply contracts were awarded to Air Liquide by Bosch-Ersol for its new Thin Film plant in Erfurt (Germany) and by five new solar cell companies in Europe and Asia.

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/101376/air-liquide-consolidating-leadership-in-photovoltaic-industry.html