This interview was conducted days before the US’ announcement of new Section 232 tariffs on polysilicon imports.
Looking at the global supply chain for crystalline silicon solar PV, one component that remains heavily dependent on Chinese supply is polysilicon. The number of companies that currently produce polysilicon can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand.
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Among the list of companies producing polysilicon outside of China, a new entrant has emerged: United Solar in Oman.
Operations at the polysilicon facility began at the end of January, with the company ramping up production on its first line, which has an annual nameplate capacity of 50,000 metric tons or the equivalent of 20GW of solar modules annual nameplate capacity. This also marks the start of polysilicon production in the region.
The second phase is expected to be operational later this year, according to Binyam Giorgis, chief financial officer at United Solar, who tells PV Tech Premium that the second line will be dictated by the market conditions.
“The plan is to kick off the second 50 kilotons later in the year. It took about 22 months to build it,” says Giorgis.
“We’ve already reached a very high quantity of polysilicon within the first three months. We were already at the highest levels you would expect for solar-grade polysilicon to come out. The purity levels have been stellar. Most of our customers are already testing, qualifying or using our product,” explains Giorgis.
According to Giorgis, the company chose to build a polysilicon facility in Oman because this part of the solar supply chain was most concentrated in China. And building a 100 kiloton facility outside China is very challenging, but it offers a viable solar supply chain alternative. “The fact that nobody’s doing it is a testament to how difficult it is, but it is needed.”
Giorgis adds: “In our minds, it creates the right opportunity to build one, and the core of the company is to create resilience and diversification of the supply chain for solar, particularly for solar PV.”
However, one of the key threats for polysilicon manufacturers outside of China is pricing, says Giorgis.
“There’s a lot of non-Xinjiang Chinese polysilicon that is priced significantly lower than non-China polysilicon.”
He mentions that this challenge needs to be resolved in order to make the polysilicon market fair for competitors. “If you don’t have a healthy sector in polysilicon that’s outside of China, then you lose the resilience to diversification.”
Moreover, building one of the largest polysilicon production facilities outside of China represents a significant investment. This was evidenced by the participation of several international and local institutions, such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Oman Investment Authority (OIA), as well as Indian solar PV manufacturer Waaree. The total capital expenditure for the project reached US$1.6 billion.
At the country level, Giorgis notes that the project needed to align with Oman’s Vision 2040—a national development roadmap that shifts the country away from its dependence on fossil fuels—in order to be in an ecosystem that could see financial support in United Solar’s project at the national level.
“Unless you’re aligned on the vision of where the energy systems are going to go globally, it’s very difficult to get enough conviction for somebody to invest in a company like this. Particularly given the oversupply situation in China and the policy transitions occurring globally, and the uncertainty.”
Furthermore, considering the large sums of financing needed to build a project such as United Solar’s polysilicon facility, Giorgis says that the banking system is not talked about enough, adding that securing large financing in smaller markets is always a challenge in itself and thus requires good relationships with banks.
“Starting from a financing perspective, it’s extremely challenging to get the equity in without the buy-in of larger investors such as the OIA.”
He adds that working with big institution, such as the IFC or the World Bank, lends greater credibility to the project’s sustainability and environmental aspects. “Those are the key concerns that most investors also have.”
Having these institutions on board for a solar manufacturing project in a country with no solar manufacturing footprint provides sufficient incentive to attract other companies to invest.
“That creates enough incentive for others to then get the comfort that they want to invest in the company, and it is a lot of money to raise in a region that does not have a track record of building solar manufacturing in the past.”
Unlike what has happened in the US, India or Turkey, where solar manufacturing started with modules, the final, and least costly, part of the supply chain, United Solar built a polysilicon facility in a region where there was no module manufacturing whatsoever, despite a flurry of announcements a few years ago that have yet to materialise.
When asked if now having an operational polysilicon facility could help attract other manufacturing companies to build in the Middle East, Giorgis says that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—which comprises Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman—is “highly underappreciated” and that the opportunities in that region are massive.
“The GCC broadly has commitments to deploy solar over the next five years that are astronomical. Not just in terms of bringing manufacturing into the GCC, but also the deployment of solar PV,” explains Giorgis.
For Giorgis, the deployment targets for these countries will create opportunities for companies across the entire supply chain to build manufacturing capacity to meet local demand. “I think you’ll see some more facilities being built.”
Outside the Middle East, the US is one of the main markets for United Solar to export its polysilicon.
The company recently expanded its reach in the US market by hiring Todd Templeton as director of the Americas, who previously served as director of the Americas at former Norwegian ingots-and-wafers producer NorSun and as chief commercial officer at CubicPV and 1366 Technologies.
A move that showed the importance of the US market for United Solar and for which Giorgis says that “the US market is a key part of our market”.
He explains that the recent hiring in the US is a big part of where the company wants to expand in the future and that the company will be spending a lot of time to develop the US market. “We already have good relationships with US manufacturers.”
Giorgis also highlights the supply-demand gap between domestic polysilicon capacity and modules, especially considering the demand growth for electricity in the coming years, which is set to be driven by data centres.
Only days after speaking with Giorgis, the US administration introduced a 15% tariff on imports of products using polysilicon. It also set minimum prices for polysilicon (US$21/kg) and its derivatives under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
According to United Solar, the minimum import price applied for polysilicon changes how it will be purchased. “Where unit price has long been the dominant consideration, purchasers in the United States will increasingly weigh the security, traceability and diversity of their supply,” said the company in a statement shared with PV Tech after the tariffs and minimum prices were announced.
“The US has recognised polysilicon as a strategic material, and we welcome that,” said Giorgis in the same statement, adding that:
“When a price floor applies to polysilicon of every origin, the question for a buyer is no longer just the cheapest price but scale, reliability and verified traceability. Buyers need suppliers who can demonstrate where their material comes from rather than simply assert it.”
Outside of the US, another important market for the company will be India.
Giorgis mentions how quickly India’s solar manufacturing capacity grew over the past few years across most of the supply chain. Annual nameplate capacity for solar modules recently surpassed the 200GW milestone, while companies are building and ramping up solar cell and wafer capacity. The Indian government is aiming to reach 80 GW of annual nameplate capacity for ingots and wafers by June 2028.
“We think we will be needed badly in a couple of years. I think the policy is going in that direction. To us, India is also a phenomenal market. I think it’s going to be a big market. We have good partners in India, including Waaree and others that are speaking to us about offtake.”
The lack of domestic polysilicon capacity indeed puts companies such as United Solar at the forefront of supplying the Indian market. Recently, the Indian government proposed implementing a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to support domestic polysilicon production. However, that scheme would cover over 10GW of annual polysilicon production capacity, representing only around 5% of the current module nameplate capacity and putting companies such as United Solar at the forefront to supply non-Chinese polysilicon capacity to India.
Finally, another market that has shown interest in United Solar’s polysilicon is Turkey. In the past few years, Turkish solar PV manufacturers have been increasing their domestic supply chain, from wafers to modules, and a spokesperson at United Solar mentioned that some companies have inquired about its polysilicon.
“If you ask me, in the next five years, India, Europe and the US are going to be huge opportunities for us globally,” concludes Giorgis.

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