The European Commission has selected 85 net-zero projects in its Innovation Fund, which includes 3GW of solar PV manufacturing.
In total, the projects will receive a combined €4.8 billion (US$5.2 billion) in grants from the Innovation Fund, nearly a billion more than the targeted budget announced a year ago. It is the largest grant since the launch of the Innovation Fund in 2020, which has so far funded €12 billion worth of projects.
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Among the solar manufacturing projects awarded are a 1.5GW heterojunction module assembly line from Chinese solar manufacturer Trina Solar in Spain, and Italian solar manufacturer FuturaSun.
No details regarding Trina Solar’s project in Spain have been released so far. However, the project’s codename “MOD4PV” was included in Spanish utility Iberdrola’s first quarter financial results in 2023. In its presentation, Iberdrola highlighted a pending module assembly plant with an annual nameplate capacity of 1.6GW which was to be built “in collaboration with a technological partner”.
Furthermore, the Spanish utility applied to receive funding from the Innovation Fund in April 2023 for the construction of a 1.6GW module assembly line. Given the annual nameplate capacity, this would be a separate project from the one made with Spanish solar manufacturer Exiom last year, which would bring a 500MW TOPCon module assembly plant in Asturias, northern Spain.
FuturaSun’s funding is for the FENICE project (FuturaSun advancEd italiaN manufacturIng Centre) which aims to build a Back Contact (xBC) and n-type module assembly plant with 1.4GW of annual nameplate capacity.
The FENICE project also plans to include a research center in order to collaborate with universities and other institutions to the development of new technologies, including IBC or tandem silicon-perovskite. This will complement the company’s research in perovskite through the startup Solertix which was acquired last year.
Both projects were selected in the cleantech manufacturing category, which awarded €1.6 billion across 25 projects, including electrolyser manufacturing, batteries (including recycling and components) or wind turbines. With the 3GW of annual nameplate capacity from this call, the Innovation Fund brings the total of solar PV manufacturing projects funded to 9.8GW.
Other solar-related projects that received funding are a hybrid solar-plus-storage in France from renewables developer Boralex, a floating PV plant in Belgium and a solar PV project installed over canals and water delivery infrastructure in Spain.
Selected applicants are due to sign their grant agreements with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) during the first quarter of 2025.
Maroš Šefčovič, executive vice-president of the European Commission, said: “In a pivotal stride towards Europe’s climate neutrality goals, the Innovation Fund has achieved another significant milestone. The unprecedented €4.8 billion in grants will support the largest selection of Innovation Fund projects to date.”
The next call for proposals under the Innovation Fund will be launched in early December 2024.
