European Solar PV Industry Alliance
New EU effort to Build Enough Solar Panels to Power 9mln Homes a Year
On 9 December 2022, the European Union (EU) formally launched the European Solar PV Industry Alliance at a high-level conference in Brussels. EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton hosted the conference and formally presented the alliance, followed by opportunities to discuss the main issues the alliance will address.
At the Alliance launch, Thierry Breton 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 Gigawatt annually by 2025 across the full value chain.”
EIT InnoEnergy, the innovation engine for sustainable energy across Europe, supported by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, has been appointed by the European Commission as the Secretariat to the EU Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Industry Alliance. EIT InnoEnergy is joined by SolarPower Europe and the European Solar Manufacturing Council on the alliance’s steering committee.
To deliver the EU Solar Strategy objectives, EIT InnoEnergy will lead the Alliance in its ambitions 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.
The targets set by the Alliance, together with the European Commission, are to develop an industry to supply an annual capacity of 30 GW by 2025, adding 60 billion Euros of new GDP every year in Europe and creating more than 400,000 new jobs (direct and indirect).
To achieve these ambitions, the Alliance will follow a seven-pronged strategic action plan covering the key conditions for investments in PV manufacturing capacities in Europe:
As per the joint launch statement signed on December 9, the first priority actions will be:
- a) 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: the Innovation Fund clean technology manufacturing window in the current large-scale call, the REPowerEU chapter in the national recovery and resilience plans, the EIB contribution to expanding the EU’s clean energy technology manufacturing capacity in the context of REPowerEU.
- b) Ensuring a sustainable level playing field and stimulating demand for competitive, efficient, and sustainable PV products and systems.
- c) Working on the swift implementation of eco-design requirements for PV systems and products and on public procurement actions.
- d) Anticipating the skills requirements of this new industry with the start of the European Solar PV Industry Alliance Academy.
Spearheading the roll-out of plans, EIT InnoEnergy will build on its impressive track record of leading the European Battery Alliance (EBA). Having delivered the industrial workstream of the EBA since its launch in 2017, EIT InnoEnergy has built a blueprint for industrial value chain development, bringing together the people and resource required for acceleration and scale.
“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,” Diego Pavia, CEO of EIT InnoEnergy, said.
As the Secretariat of the Alliance, EIT InnoEnergy will facilitate business and industrial cooperation across the solar PV value-chain, lead the implementation of the strategic industrial action plan, manage membership, gather, and disseminate market intelligence, manage communications, and run the Alliance’s ‘Business and Investment Platform’.
SolarPower Europe and the European Solar Manufacturing Council will join EIT InnoEnergy on the Alliance’s steering committee as recognition of their role as key industry stakeholders. Together, the steering committee will oversee the delivery of the Alliance’s work and the European Solar PV Forum, a large, annual public event that will facilitate high-level policy and political discussions.
To ensure we have solar panels to power energy security plans, the EU has launched the European Solar PV Industry Alliance as a funnel for solar manufacturing financing. Now industry needs a dedicated solar fund to flow into this new funnel.
After years of concern, the European solar sector is encouraged by historic EU political attention and investment opportunities being directed toward building solar panels and components.
The targeted number of solar panels can power 9 million homes – more than all the homes in the Netherlands. 30 GW would also create over 100,000 jobs in manufacturing alone, while supporting up to 1 million jobs in installing and maintaining solar panels.
“The EU Solar PV Industry Alliance is a critical recognition of the importance of building solar panels in Europe. It’s the coming-of-age of the European manufacturing story. The Alliance means funding can get to the right projects, but we’ll be cut off at the knees if we don’t have a dedicated solar fund for the Alliance to use,” Dries Acke, Policy Director at SolarPower Europe, commented.
The new European Solar PV Industry Alliance comes at a critical time. In confronting energy and climate crises, global competition to build solar panels is rapidly heating up, as seen by the US Inflation Reduction Act. To ensure Europe’s place in the global solar journey, and the success of the new Alliance, industry needs dedicated funding to build and run factories.
The International Energy Agency has just revealed that global solar PV capacity is set to triple by 2022 and overtake coal to become the largest source of power capacity globally. In the face of the energy and climate crises, demand for solar panels and solar components has never been greater. The European Solar PV Industry Alliance must evolve in this reality and drive a dedicated solar manufacturing fund.
The European Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance aims to build resilience and strategic autonomy for Europe’s solar photovoltaic (PV) value chain. It will identify barriers, opportunities and investment possibilities in the solar PV value chain while also addressing circularity and sustainability and the impact on skills.
What the alliance does
To accelerate solar photovoltaic (solar PV) deployment in the EU, the European Solar PV Industry Alliance was launched in 2022 to develop an EU solar PV industrial ecosystem to help secure and diversify supplies of solar PVs. Doing so by scaling up EU manufacturing of competitive, innovative, and sustainable solar PV products as well as diversifying international PV value chain components and supply raw materials.
The alliance will elaborate and implement a strategic action plan based by:
- Identifying manufacturing scale-up bottlenecks and providing recommendations;
- Facilitating access to finance, including by establishing commercialization pathways for solar PV manufacturing;
- Providing a framework for cooperation on the development and uptake;
- Maintaining international partnerships and resilient global supply chains;
- Supporting solar PV research and innovation;
- Facilitating and increasing communication on circularity and sustainability;
- Exploring and developing a skilled workforce for the PV manufacturing sector.
Who can join and how
The alliance brings together businesses and stakeholders interested in supporting European solutions to increase EU PV panel and component production capacity and in diversifying supply sources for products, components, and raw materials. The alliance is open to all public and private entities with relevant activities in the area of solar PV, including companies and associations, social partners, education and training providers, research and technology organizations, investors, civil society organizations, and representatives of EU countries, regional and public authorities.
