Solar Organic Centro España is planning to build a 10GW solar module and battery manufacturing facility in the Spanish autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha.
The company held a working meeting with the representatives of the Castilla-La Mancha government last week to advance the roadmap of the facility in the Ciudad Real municipality of Socuéllamos.
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Solar Organic said it would use an unspecified Taiwanese technology to produce both monocrystalline passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) and n-type tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) modules. Once complete, the production line will accommodate modules up to 2,500mm x 1,400mm.
The company did not give a specific timeline for the project’s construction or completion, but the government of Castilla-La Mancha said the project was being treated as a priority and that it had taken a “step forward” to streamline processing times for developers to access European aid.
This is one of the largest planned solar manufacturing facilities in Europe. The EU has issued various support schemes for manufacturing clean energy within its borders, most recently a €3.4 billion fund to support clean energy and energy storage system manufacturing projects.
A number of European companies are pursuing solar manufacturing capacity, though with limited success to date. Chinese PV manufacturer DAS Solar began construction on a 3GW module assembly plant in France earlier this year, joining PV startup Carbon in its efforts to establish manufacturing capacity in France.
In a live discussion at this year’s Intersolar Europe conference, PV Tech hosted representatives from the Becquerel Institute and European firms Holosolis, Oxford PV, Elinor Batteries and ElevenEs, to discuss the prospects of European solar and storage manufacturing. Broadly, the experts told us they saw great opportunities in Europe, but that financing, competition and political will still stood as barriers to reshoring clean energy supply chains. Read and watch the full panel discussion here.
