Prospective solar wafer manufacturer Sunwafe has appointed a new CEO and secured permits for a 30-hectare site in northern Spain, in efforts to establish Europe’s “first” large-scale, 20GW silicon ingot and wafer production facility.
Sunwafe has appointed Michael Pinto as its new CEO. Lisbon-based Pinto was formerly a long-term executive at GE Capital, the financial services arm of General Electric, and has founded two clean energy-based firms since 2020. Following the appointment, Sunwafe said it is “prepared to move into execution stage on several critical fronts”, including establishing partnerships, a leadership team and raising capital.
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The company also said it has secured local government approval to build the 20GW facility on a 30-hectare site in the northern province of Asturias.
In February, Sunwafe signed a contract with Spanish engineering firm Tresca to oversee the engineering and project management of the wafer plant. That followed a €200 million investment from the Spanish government in March 2025 under its RENOVAL plan for renewable energy manufacturing.
The company said it plans to produce 2.5 billion silicon wafers per year, equivalent to around 20GW of solar capacity, with commercial operations expected to begin in early 2029.
Sunwafe was founded in 2024 by clean tech startup investor InnoEnergy, with a view to reducing Europe’s “critical dependency in a strategically vital segment of the clean energy value chain”.
“Clearly, this is a defining moment for Europe and for the global energy transition,” said Pinto. “By carefully constructing win-win agreements with select strategic partners in Asia, Sunwafe is committed to building a globally competitive advanced manufacturing platform that successfully reshores wafer production as a core industrial capability here in Europe.”
The announcement comes as Europe has seemingly put greater resolve behind efforts to build domestic solar manufacturing capacity. Late last week, Dutch startup Resilicon announced it had been awarded strategic priority status under the EU’s Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) for a planned polysilicon production facility. The European Commission has also announced its Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), which will focus on establishing strategic solar cell and inverter manufacturing capacity across the continent.
Establishing viable European manufacturing – particularly upstream production like polysilicon and wafers – will not be easy. Global capacity is overwhelmingly concentrated in China, and the polysilicon industry has been struggling beneath consistently low selling prices and ongoing overcapacity on the manufacturing side.
