European Solar Initiative has set objective of reshoring 20 GW of PV production by 2035.
Demand for PV-supplied electricity is set to increase from 3% to 15% by 2030 in the EU. However much of the supply of PV kit comes from Asia which has outpriced and out supplied European peers at eyewatering speed.
As Europe remains one of the largest solar markets globally, deployment levels continue to ramp up, and sustainability issues come to the fore, calls for meaningful domestic manufacturing capacity to be re-erected have become increasingly loud over the past few years, and it appears that in 2022 they may begin to be answered.
The SolarPower Europe (SPE) trade group is one of many organizations determined to re-establish a homegrown solar manufacturing landscape. In a recent op-ed on pv-magazine.com, CEO Walburga Hemetsberger stated that the association envisions 20GW of PV production in Europe by 2025, covering the entire value chain, from polysilicon to modules. “This is the objective we set for the European Solar Initiative, an industrial alliance we launched in February this year [2021], which facilitates the redevelopment of industrial projects in Europe,” she wrote. As she pointed out, however, manufacturers must establish gigawatt-scale fabs to be cost competitive.
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