French manufacturing startup Carbon plans to launch the first part of its module production facility in autumn 2025, as part of a plan to bring 5GW of cell and 3.5GW of module manufacturing capacity to the European solar sector.
This first part of the facility – dubbed “Carbon one” – will be the first component of the Carbon gigawatt-scale manufacturing plant, and will have an annual production capacity of 500MW of modules. The company’s gigafactory, which will be built in Fos-sur-Mer, on the perimeter of the Grand Port Maritime de Marseille, is set to be Europe’s largest PV manufacturing facility upon its commissioning in late 2026.
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Carbon one will serve as a pilot unit for the company’s long-term plans, and a commercial accelerator for its manufacturing goals, with the pilot plant set to produce one million PV panels per year, and employ 200 people in its construction and operation.
Carbon announced the latest news at the Choose France economic summit, held in Versailles earlier this week. The company unveiled its plans earlier this year, but has already adjusted its timeline; in March, Carbon said its gigafactory would be fully commissioned in 2025, but has now said that the large-scale facility will be in operation by “late 2026”.
PV Tech Premium spoke to the company last year, at which point a spokesperson confirmed that the gigafactory would initially focus on tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) production, but that the company is open to investing in “tandem technologies” in the future. Carbon’s news follows a number of manufacturing announcements in the TOPCon sector, such as Vietnamese firm Boviet Solar building its first such facility in the US, but this is one of few positive developments for the European manufacturing industry.
Earlier this year, Johan Lindahl, secretary general of the European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC) told PV Tech Premium that a lack of European-based manufacturing capacity and the oversupply of cheap, Chinese-made products means the sector could be “about to lose the whole European PV manufacturing industry,” raising questions about the long-term health of the European manufacturing sector.
The news also follows calls from French economy minister Bruno Le Maire for PV buyers to “massively resort to ‘Made in France’ panels,” as part of plans to dramatically grow the French PV manufacturing industry. The commissioning of large-scale module manufacturing plants, such as Carbon’s, will be integral to realising this plan.
