Yingli Green Energy's in-house polysilicon plant starts commercial operation

BAODING, CHINA: Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd announced its in-house polysilicon manufacturing facility, Fine Silicon Co. Ltd, has successfully started commercial operation, which is another significant milestone after Fine Silicon announced it has commenced trial production and reached certain key technology and operating milestones in December 2009.

With state-of-the-art facilities and advanced monosilane-based polysilicon manufacturing technology, the polysilicon plant with a designed capacity of 3,000 metric tons per year is capable of producing high quality solar-grade and electronic-grade polysilicon through energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes.

"We are pleased to announce this significant operating milestone," said Liansheng Miao, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Yingli Green Energy. "We expect the successful startup of this plant to further strengthen our leading position as one of the world's largest vertically integrated PV manufacturers. Fine Silicon will also serve as a key platform to improve our raw material quality, which is an additional guarantee for our high performance PV modules."

Yuehe Zhang, GM of Fine Silicon, highlighted the following significant aspects of the polysilicon production at Fine Silicon:

* Advanced monosilicon-based technology and closed-loop manufacturing process are significant advantages of Fine Silicon, which allows significant electricity savings and low environmental impact compared with the trichlorosilane-based polysilicon manufacturing technology;

* No chlorides or TCS is utilized in its manufacturing process, and sulfate, its by-product, is easily treated;

* No safety or environmental related incidents during the construction and trial production period, resulting from our strong commitment to safety and environmental responsibility;

* A smooth trial production process led to a perfect realization of the original schedule for commercial production.