PVTIME – On 20 July, Hanwha Qcells’ manufacturing plant in Cartersville, Georgia, suffered a fire. The local fire service confirmed that the fire originated in the silicon ingot production area for solar modules and that no personnel were injured. It was sparked when molten material at a high temperature fell onto equipment following an operational fault during ingot production.
A similar fire occurred at the same site just three weeks earlier. Last month, the plant completed construction of its solar cell production line to establish vertical manufacturing integration. The site was due to combine cell manufacturing with phased ingot and wafer output to enable the mass production of finished solar modules. Repeated fires have raised concerns in the market over supply capacity and consistent product quality.
A further fire occurred twelve months ago at the nearby Cartersville facility, which is also run by Hanwha Advanced Materials, another Hanwha Group subsidiary. This incident was caused by an exothermic chemical reaction. This factory supplies materials such as EVA encapsulant film to the adjacent Hanwha Qcells plant.
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