Enel indicators grant agreement with EU for 3GW bifacial PV module facility in Italy

• Enel Green Power (EGP) has actually signed a grant agreement with the European Commission for a 3GW PV module plant in Catania, Italy, with an R&D commitment to pursue tandem cell manufacturing in the coming years.

Under the European Union's first Innovation Fund for large-scale projects, it will add to the development of TANGO (iTaliAN pv Giga manufacturing facility) with a total investment of around EUR600 million (US$ 662 million). Additional funding from the EU of EUR118 million will help boost by 15-fold its existing 200MW capacity. as well as will include the manufacture of bifacial heterojunction PV cells.

The 3Sun plant is anticipated to be fully commissioned by July 2024, with an initial line with a capacity of 400MW set to start manufacturing in September 2023.

Enel claimed 3Sun's lines will certainly likewise generate heterojunction bifacial panels as well as additional teased the advancement of modules featuring tandem cell frameworks in the future, however offered no details timeline for this. While heterojunction modules are currently commercially available, tandem cells are still taken into consideration to be some years away from commercialisation.

Francesco Starace, Chief Executive Officer of the Enel Group, claimed: "The sourcing footprint of these essential elements is a weak point in the worldwide supply chain and also we see the demand to rebalance its geographical spread that is today excessively depending on a solitary Oriental source. This investment will position 3,000 MW each year of production capacity back in Europe as well as will mark for Italy a big action in preserving management in modern technology."

Salvatore Bernabei, CEO of Enel Group Power, stated concerning the TANGO project that it has "high possibility" for scalability as well as could be a version for various other gigawatt-scale PV manufacturing facilities to be developed in Europe.

"The TANGO project will add in the direction of the success of EU's increased passions of 40% power consumption from renewable resources by 2030, alongside helping reduce energy dependence," added Bernabei.

Earlier this year, EGP was just one of the significant European solar designers to call on the European Union to develop a PV supply chain method for Europe.