Enel Green Power signs EU deal for solar gigafactory in Italy

Renewable energy provider Enel Green Power said on Friday it had signed an agreement with the European Commission to scale up a 200 MW gigafactory in Catania to 3 GW, becoming Europe’s largest maker of bifacial photovoltaic modules that produce power from both sides of the panel.

Enel said it had secured an undisclosed funding for the Tango project in mid-November. “The 3 GW production facility is expected to be fully commissioned by July 2024, after starting with the first 400 MW in September 2023, making 3Sun Europe’s largest gigawatt-scale factory producing high-performance bifacial PV modules,” the company said in a statement.

The funds were provided by the European Commission under the framework of the EU’s first Innovation Fund call for large-scale projects. Total investment at the site will amount to around 600 million euros ($663 million), of which 118 million euros will come from the EU Innovation fund, the company said.

The project is expected to create around 1,000 direct and indirect jobs by 2024.

Enel is Italy’s biggest utility and the world’s biggest listed renewable energy company. It has been working to scale up its manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand for solar panels and cut Europe’s dependence on Asian suppliers.

“Europe alone is expected to absorb a large portion of additional demand thanks to the great competitiveness and convenience of this technology,” Enel CEO Francesco Starace said in a statement.

The sourcing footprint of these important components is a weak point in the global supply chain and we see the need to rebalance its geographic spread that is today excessively dependent on a single Asian source,” he added.