Dmitry Baranov, senior expert of Finam Management

– Launch of own polysilicon production will help Russia to independently develop solar power engineering

Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin has instructed Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, the Ministry of Economic Development and the administration of Krasnoyarsk region to draft proposals for financing the creation of a Solar Power Engineering innovative cluster for the production of materials and equipment for conversion of solar energy into electricity. This conversion is effected with the help of semi-conducting materials, particularly, polycrystalline silicon. Crystalline silicon can be found in 90% of solar batteries. Russia’s first polycrystalline silicon plant was launched at Mioning Chemical Combine (Zheleznogorsk, Rosatom) in Sept 2008. For the moment, the plant had produce 200 tons of polysilicon a year but its final goal is as much as 4,000 tons a year.
 
The launch of own polysilicon production will help Russia to independently produce this product, to develop own solar power engineering and to offer its polysilicon to other concerned countries, first of all, to its CIS partners.

Rosatom is diversifying its activities. New directions will help the company to increase its earnings, to give jobs to employees of its companies that have been or will be shut-down, to develop alternative energy sources, i.e. to become one of the technological leaders of not only Russia but the whole world. The key buyer of polycrystalline silicon is Roskosmos (Federal Space Agency) (solar batteries for spacecrafts). Solar energy is an excellent alternative for remote regions; solar batteries can be used for producing energy and heat for a drilling site, a deposit, a rural school or a forester’s house.