ESSE, the new joint venture between Sharp Solar Energy and Enel Green Power, has just finished work on its first PV plant. The 5MW ground-mounted system in the southern Italian town of Serragiumenta, has been fitted with Sharp tandem-junction amorphous-silicon thin-film modules and will generate about 7.5 million kWh of electricity a year.
The Serragiumenta system is the first stage in ESSE’s long-term plan to construct 500MW worth of systems in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. To help achieve this target, ESSE has enlisted the help of STMicroelectronics to build an a-Si thin-film panel manufacturing factory in Catania, Italy. The initial size of the factory is 160MW, with the capacity to be increased to 480MW.