(From left) Bengal power minister Mrinal Banerjee, Bhaskar Silicon Ltd MD Jyoti Poddar, Bengal commerce and industry minister Nirupam Sen and Centrotherm CEO Hans Autenreith in Calcutta on Thursday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta, Aug. 21: The country’s first polysilicon manufacturing facility will come up in Haldia at an investment of Rs 5,500 crore.

Promoted by city-based Environ Energy Tech Services, the project — Bhaskar Silicon Ltd — will be built in technological collaboration with Centrotherm of Germany.

Polysilicon is the key raw material for solar wafer, photo voltaic cells and modules that are needed to generate electricity from sunlight.

At present, some companies in the country make photo voltaic cells and modules. But raw materials such as polysilicon and wafers are entirely imported.

Bhaskar Silicon will make 2500 tonnes of polysilicon a year capable to generate 250MW of solar power.

“Bhaskar Silicon’s will be the largest such project in the world. There are five other plants in the US, Norway and Germany manufacturing polysilicon,” said Hans Autenreith, CEO of Centrotherm.

Centrotherm will pick up an equity stake in Bhaskar Silicon, a wholly owned subsidiary of Environ Energy Tech Services Ltd.

“The Bengal government has already arranged 200 acres for the project in Haldia and the civil work will start soon,” said commerce and industry minister Nirupam Sen.

“This project is capable of making semiconductor chips at a later stage and this has been taken into account while the plan for the project was drawn up,” he said.

“The plant will be set up in four phases over an area of 800 acres. In the first phase, we will make solar cells and modules based on imported wafers. It will require an investment of Rs 350 crore,” said Jyoti Poddar, chief executive of Environ Energy and managing director of Bhaskar Silicon Ltd. The first phase will be completed next year.

“The polysilicon manufacturing facility will come up in the second phase entailing an investment of Rs 2,500 crore. This phase will be completed in 2010. In the third phase, we’ll start making wafers. This will require an investment of Rs 1,100 crore,” Poddar said.

The remaining Rs 1,000 crore will be invested in the fourth phase when the semiconductor chip manufacturing facility will come up.