German chemical group Wacker Chemie’s U.S. polysilicon production facility was shut down last September after an explosion occurred, which was caused by a hydrogen leak.
“The production in Charleston is currently still halted, but we expect it to restart in the spring,” a spokesman for the Munich-based Group told pv magazine. A technical defect is said to have caused the explosion.
However, halting production in Charleston is not the only problem Wacker Chemie is currently facing in the United States. Tennessee state health and safety officials are also investigating other potential violations.
Wacker is potentially in violation of a number of regulations pertaining to the maintenance operations conducted at the U.S. plant on August 30, 2017, seven days prior to the accident.
“It is true that we received two relevant communications (notifications) from the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSHA),” the Wacker spokesperson confirmed in a report published by the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
This, however, is not related to the accident at the U.S. plant on 7 September. “There are several complaints that relate to personal protective equipment, operations and hazard analysis for certain maintenance work,” said the spokesman.
According to the Chattanooga Times report, Wacker Chemie will pay more than $ 20,000 in penalties. It could also legally oppose the fines.
“We will carefully examine the issues that TOSHA complains about and then react accordingly,” said the Wacker Chemie spokesman.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.