Meyer Burger weighes gigawatt-scale German solar fab

• President Gunter Erfurt informed a German radio terminal a solar manufacturing facility in North Rhine-Westphalia might provide high-efficiency panels for a 10 GW floating solar project on the huge Hambach open-cast coal mine.

Swiss solar manufacturing devices manufacturer Meyer Burger is thinking about developing a production center for its high-efficiency PV cells and also components in Germany, president Gunter Erfurt informed German broadcaster Radio Ruhr at the weekend break.

The solar tools manufacturer, which has actually been hammered by reduced margins on its items in the Far East, in 2015 created calculated collaborations with Norwegian solar module manufacturer REC Group as well as the Oxford PV technology business drew out of Oxford University. The purpose of the cooperations was to bring Meyer Burger's heterojunction-based solar innovation to market.

Although Meyer Burger manager Erfurt informed the radio terminal the place of any type of German assembly line was yet to be identified, he showed up to have a clear suggestion of where the items made there could originally be released: at the stretching Hambach open-cast coal mine in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia.

Coal-to-solar

A floating solar project at the significant website could, with Meyer Berger's high-efficiency solar technology, have a generation ability of 10 GW, according to Erfurt. The CEO described that amounted the ability of the Weisweiler, Neurath, Niederaußem and also Frimmersdorf coal-fired nuclear power plant in the area, making sure the location can continue to be an essential generation facility after the power shift. Erfurt supplied a tip of where the suggested Meyer Burger manufacturing facility would certainly be found by mentioning panels set up at Hambach could be "made in North Rhine-Westphalia."

Erfurt claimed a floating project at the previous mine might change a few of the 10,000 tasks anticipated to be shed in the regional coal market as well as would certainly decrease dissipation from what is the biggest lake in North Rhine-Westphalia. The local federal government has actually articulated rate of interest in such a system, Erfurt included.

The German federal government has actually consented to terminate coal by 2038, although it still needs to wrap up the information of exactly how that will certainly be attained.

At the end of 2018, Hamburg-based environment-friendly electrical energy carrier Greenpeace Energy supplied to get electrical utility RWE's lignite department in a quote to fold coal-fired nuclear power plant in the 'Rheinische Revier' location by 2025 as well as change them with 8.2 GW of solar as well as wind project ability. The quote was turned down by the power business.