Solar World: Silicon Deal Amid Scarcity

(UPI) — The major silicon supply contract signed Wednesday between Germany’s ErSol Solar Energy AG and Wacker Chemie AG highlights one of the biggest problems in the solar industry: the extreme scarcity of the product’s main ingredient.

“For 2006 … there are roughly 13,000 to 15,000 tons of high-grade silicon available,” Erik Thorsen, the president and chief executive officer of the Norwegian silicon supplier Renewable Energy Corporation, told United Press International.

“Probably the demand (from solar companies) is twice the current supply,” he said.
UPI