Enel Green Power (EGP), an Italian renewable energy company, has secured a grant agreement with the European Commission to build a solar panel gigafactory. The funding will come from the European Union’s (EU) inaugural Innovation Fund, and will be used to create an industrial-scale bifacial photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing facility. The facility will be developed in EGP’s 3Sun solar panel factory in Catania, Sicily, and will be known as the Italian PV GigaFactory (TANGO). The EGP will invest $659 million in the capacity expansion, with almost $129 million from EU funding.
The company is expected to have 400 MW of TANGO project online by September 2023, with the complete 3 GW of capacity projected to be operational by July 2024. When fully operational, the TANGO facility will produce bifacial heterojunction PV cells with a tandem cell structure that will boost PV module efficiency by 30 per cent. Furthermore, by 2024, the plant is estimated to generate nearly 1,000 direct and indirect jobs in the area. In its first 10 years of operation, the 3 GW panels may generate approximately 5.5 TWh of renewable electricity, offsetting the equivalent of around 25 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
In September 2021, EGP launched a pilot plant for the production of green hydrogen in Chile. The plant is located at Cabo Negro north of Punta Arenas and has a capacity of 1.25 MW. It is expected to produce green hydrogen through electrolysis powered by a 3.4 MW wind turbine. The plant is likely to be operational by the end of 2022.
REGlobal’s Views: Solar PV supply chains have been facing disruptions worldwide owing to material shortages, price volatility and trade restrictions. Thus, many large energy players are now turning their attention to manufacturing of PV cells and modules for ensuring self-sufficiency.
