Polysilicon maker to invest $850M, bring 400-plus jobs to Hawkins County

SURGOINSVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — A manufacturer with a new, cleaner way of making polysilicon for solar panels has won a $255.6 million federal tax credit and plans to invest about $1 billion and bring 400 or more high-paying manufacturing jobs to the Phipps Bend Industrial Park.

Highland Materials, Inc. has worked with local, regional and state economic development and higher education officials for about 18 months. The tax credit award, part of a clean energy manufacturing program funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, helped put the project in a position where Highland will soon exercise an option to buy 146 acres in the industrial park.

“This big facility is very much moving forward and we expect it will be in construction early next year,” Highland President Richard Rast told News Channel 11.

“We’ll be in production in late (2026) and we’ll be in full production in ’27,” Rast added.

Highland filed its initial Tennessee business license in late July 2023. It’s been operating out of East Tennessee State University’s Innovation Lab but will likely move its corporate headquarters closer to the Phipps Bend site. Rast said Highland — which bought the intellectual property of another company that had developed the “aluminum-silicon alloy system” of purifying raw silicon — found unmatched help at every level here as it sought a landing spot in multiple states.

“We’ve enjoyed an incredibly good partnership with NETWORKS (NETWORKS-Sullivan Partnership) and with the economic development organizations in the region and at the state level, and also with tremendous support from DC,” Rast said.

“The amount of support that we’ve received and the cooperation between all the people who have supported us has been remarkable,” Rast said, mentioning Hawkins County’s Industrial Development Board and NETWORKS-Sullivan Partnership, Holston Electric Power, and TVA. He said East Tennessee State University’s Research Corporation has also been closely involved.

He also said Northeast State Community College’s RCAM (Regional Center for Advanced Manufacturing) is working with Highland to develop apprenticeships and other workforce programs.

“That was one of the key reasons that we picked this site was having access to that resource and what that’s going to mean in terms of our workforce development,” Rast said.

A billion dollars? Really? Yes.

The massive project will produce 16,000 metric tons of “solar grade polysilicon at less than standard cost and with a 90% reduction in carbon emissions,” according to a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) news release. The $255.6 million is from the “Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit,” or 48C, program.

To qualify for a credit worth 30% of the project cost, wages had to meet prevailing levels and there were also apprenticeship requirements. Rast said bringing a rail spur to the site and constructing the 1.2 million-square-foot plant will require an estimated $854 million. Some additional project costs aren’t eligible for the DOE credit, pushing the total over $1 billion.

The DOE release describes the program as “aimed at accelerating clean energy manufacturing and recycling and reducing greenhouse gas emissions at industrial facilities.”

Most of the “solar grade” polysilicon used in solar panel production takes silicon crystals extracted from mined quartzite, transforming them into a purified form of silicon that generates energy, for instance as a main part of solar panels.

The two main methods to create it — the “Siemens process” and “fluidized bed reactor” technology — are both energy intensive and, according to the Highland website, “require a large amount of volatile chemicals and gases.”

The plant would employ a massively scaled-up version of an “aluminum-silicon alloy system” that smelts the impure raw silicon with pure aluminum. The low melting temperature (though still 800 degrees Celsius) is what drives down the energy requirement.

Rast said Highland’s process doesn’t require handling hazardous chemicals and uses one-third or less the electricity of the other main manufacturing technologies with carbon emissions about 90% lower. Still, producing enough so-called solar silicon to create around 10 gigawatts worth of solar cells annually will use a lot of power, with Holston Electric Cooperative likely getting an 80-megawatt customer.

After being produced from mined quartz, raw silicon will be rail-shipped to the Highland factory. The chunks of polysilicon that are then rail-shipped out will go to facilities that turn them into large “ingots” that can be sliced into thin wafers.

Those wafers are the base material for solar cells that are arranged together in between glass in larger solar panels. The polysilicon can also be used in improved lithium-ion batteries that use silicon anodes.