Training center opens in Chattanooga as Wacker set to expand

MAKING POLYSILICONWacker is considered one of the industry's big four polysilicon manufacturers worldwide alongside OCI, GCL-Poly and Hemlock, which is building a plant worth more than $1 billion near Clarksville, Tenn.

Wacker officials say that injecting $300 million more into its Bradley County plant will hike capacity by 20 percent, and the opening Wednesday of a training center will ensure skilled workers for its factory.

"Without that, we couldn't start up," said Ingomar Kovar, chief executive of Wacker Chemical, about its high-tech training facility in Chattanooga.

The German company earlier this week unveiled the new plant investment, which raises spending on the factory to $1.8 billion.

Located at Chattanooga State Community College, the Wacker Institute holds a miniature version of the planned factory that will make polysilicon for the solar industry when it opens in late 2013.

About $13.7 million was spent to buy the former Olan Mills photography building off Amnicola Highway and put in seven new classrooms, a lab and the pilot plant, college officials said.

Chattanooga State President Jim Catanzaro called the center "the largest, most advanced" training facility of its kind in the country.

"I don't think there is anything like it in the U.S.," he said.

The Wacker facility highlights the company's high level of capital investment. Wacker will spend nearly $2.8 million for every job at its plant near Charleston, Tenn., where it will employ about 650 people.

Kovar termed the institute "a unique, innovative concept." He said it combines theoretical learning and practical training under one roof within Chattanooga State's engineering technology program. Wacker invested more than $3 million in the 25,000-square-foot site, he said.

"This building represents much more than bricks and mortar," said Kovar.

photo Dr. Jim Catanzaro, president of Chattanooga State Community College, speaks at grand opening ceremonies Wednesday for the new Wacker Institute at the Chattanooga State campus on Amnicola Highway.

The center "truly prepares our people who are destined to run production with confidence" in what will be one of the largest such polysilicon plants in the world, he said.

"If we are to compete and compete successfully in the growing photovoltaic industry ... we must have competent, well-trained and qualified people," Kovar said.

Wacker has about 200 workers on board so far. About 65 of the workers being trained at the institute soon will leave for Germany, where they'll study for six months at Wacker's polysilicon plant in Burghausen.

Jim Barrott, Chattanooga State's vice president of technology, termed the training center "an amazing facility."

He said that within the next year or two, all of the college's engineering technology program will shift to the site.

Konrad Bachhuber, the Wacker plant's site manager, said the company's new investment could add a few hundred construction jobs. The company expects to have between 2,000 and 3,000 construction workers on site in mid-2012.

And, he said, the larger plant might need more workers in the future.

Kovar said the company remains confident even though demand softened for polysilicon worldwide last year. But, he said, inventory is being reduced.

"We think we have an outstanding technology, very good quality ... and we are very efficient with our material," he said. "There might be consolidation of producers, but we think we'll be successful."

Gary Farlow, who heads the Cleveland/Bradley Chamber of Commerce, said the new investment is on top of an already huge project.

"We know they're committed to the region and to do the project," he said.

Upcoming Events