Silfab Solar has outlined a plan to bring online its solar cell production facility in Fort Mill, South Carolina. The community on the North Carolina border has vocalized safety concerns about the operation of the plant.
Silfab voluntarily retained TRC Engineers to provide third-party engineering evaluation of the leak prevention and response methods and procedures for solar cell manufacturing processes. Manufacturers use certain chemicals (silane, anhydrous ammonia, hydrochloric acid, potassium hydroxide and hydrofluoric acid) to turn a silicon wafer into a solar cell. A contained chemical incident earlier this year called the safety of the Silfab manufacturing site into question.
TRC produced a comprehensive report that concluded Silfab had designed and installed equipment with multiple redundant safety features that met or exceeded regulatory requirements. The report has now been delivered to the South Carolina Dept. of Environmental Services.
TRC did provide recommendations to further improve safety at the site, including adding more detection systems, alarms and shut-off valves throughout the plant, and Silfab has either already acted on the recommendations or will do so as the manufacturing lines start up. Silfab expects commissioning of lines to begin Oct. 19.
“Following a comprehensive, thorough, independent review by TRC Engineers, we are proud that our existing safety systems and operational controls were confirmed to meet or exceed regulatory standards,” said Paolo Maccario, Silfab president and CEO. “Taking that a step further, we acted decisively to implement additional recommendations, strengthening system redundancies, enhancing real-time monitoring and advancing our emergency response coordination.”
Silfab has shared report findings and commissioning plans with the public on its website.
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