The EU Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance, together with the European Commission, have announced the aim of developing a solar industry capable of supplying an annual capacity of 30 gigawatts (GW) by 2025, adding 60 billion Euros of new GDP every year in Europe and creating more than 400,000 new jobs.
EIT InnoEnergy, supported by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), have been appointed by the European Commission as the Secretariat to the Alliance. EIT InnoEnergy is joined by SolarPower Europe and the European Solar Manufacturing Council on the alliance’s steering committee, overseeing the delivery of the Alliance’s work and the European Solar PV Forum, a large, annual public event that aims to facilitate high-level policy and political discussions.
To deliver the EU Solar Strategy objectives, the Alliance intends to re-develop, de-risk and accelerate the PV industry in Europe across all segments of the value chain to create its competitive position in the context of booming demand for solar PV in Europe and globally.
A new seven-pronged strategic action plan has also been set out, covering the key conditions for investments in PV manufacturing capacities in Europe. The plan aims to identify manufacturing scale up bottlenecks and provide recommendations; facilitate access to finance, including establishing commercialisation pathways for solar PV manufacturing; provide the framework for cooperation actions for development and uptake; support international partnerships and global supply chain resilience; support the solar PV research and innovation base; and promote circularity and sustainability measures, as well as upskilling and nurturing of skills through partnerships and training programmes.
Having delivered the industrial workstream of the European Battery Alliance since its launch in 2017, EIT InnoEnergy says that it has built a blueprint for industrial value chain development, bringing together the people and resource required for acceleration and scale.
Diego Pavia, CEO of EIT InnoEnergy said: “We are honoured to be appointed to lead the work of the EU Solar PV Industry Alliance. As we have done for batteries through our work on the European Battery Alliance, we will now do for solar PV, leveraging our robust industrial value chain blueprint and network of stakeholders to achieve rapid development of manufacturing projects across the solar PV value chain for the benefit of EU citizens.”
As per the joint launch statement, one of the first priority actions will include mobilising public and private finance for European solar PV manufacturing projects to scale up capacity, making best use of all existing and new European financing instruments. Notably, this includes the Innovation Fund clean technology manufacturing window in the current large-scale call, the REPowerEU chapter in the national recovery and resilience plans, and the EIB contribution to expanding the EU’s clean energy technology manufacturing capacity in the context of REPowerEU.
The Alliance is also aiming to ensure a sustainable level playing field and stimulating demand for competitive, efficient and sustainable PV products and systems; work on the swift implementation of ecodesign requirements for PV systems and products and on public procurement actions; and anticipate the skills requirements of this new industry with the start of the European Solar PV Industry Alliance Academy.
At the Alliance launch, Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, said: “Third countries are giving massive support to develop their clean tech industries and attract ours. The EU needs to up its game in terms of investment and regulatory environment for our clean tech manufacturing to thrive, create jobs in Europe and compete globally. The new European Solar PV Industrial Alliance is a key initiative to decrease dependencies and boost EU manufacturing capacity of solar PV technologies to 30 gigawatts annually by 2025 across the full value chain.”
