SOLAR TECHNOLOGY IS BUILT ON US
Solar energy is the fastest growing energy technology in the world. According to NREL, the amount of solar energy hitting the earth in 15 hours is equal to the energy represented by all of the crude oil remaining in the ground. And, despite the fact that the solar market has grown at greater than a 40% annual rate since the late 1990s, it still currently represents less than 1% of the world's energy supply.
MEMC is dedicated to changing that and bringing solar cost to grid parity.
With more than 50 years of experience in the wafer business, MEMC understands the needs of our solar wafer customers. As innovators in the wafer industry, MEMC has engineered wafer technology to the world’s most exacting specifications for decades. However, as our solar customers know, it’s about more than simple experience because MEMC understands the need for quality.
At its core, the majority of the solar market is based on polysilicon and silicon wafers. As a longtime leader in the production of high quality polysilicon and wafers for the semiconductor industry, MEMC is uniquely poised to help increase the prevalence of solar technology around the world. MEMC’s silicon purity and wafer quality is well-known, and has been a factor in increasing efficiency in our wafers.
Silicon acts as a semiconductor in that depending upon the manufacturing and production process, it can convey electrons, in a variety of ways, from one place to another. By harnessing this ability for the semiconductor industry, MEMC pioneered new techniques and material processes that allowed for greater efficiencies and features that benefited our customers.
Utilizing five decades of development, production, and research in silicon and wafer technology, MEMC extended its expertise into the solar wafer market in 2007. The result is a proven and robust process with tremendous cost and productivity advantages for the solar industry. We are currently working on enhancing solar wafer efficiencies, as well as other pioneering efforts that will impact the solar market for years to come. As technical advances and other factors continue to increase the pervasiveness of solar around the world, MEMC will be there providing a solid and reliable foundation to build on.