L R AS Published on Monday 31 January 2022 - n° 391 - Categories:Europe
Developers call on the European Union to promote PV production
A number of European solar developers have called on the European Union to develop an industrial production chain for solar components. They are calling for the EU to have a manufacturing capacity of 20 GW by 2030,
in order to "achieve the objectives of the European green agreement set by the Commission".
"The signatories - BayWa r.e., EDF Renewables, Enel Green Power, ENGIE, Iberdrola Renewables, Amarenco, Akuo Energy and Vattenfall Solar - deplore the recent market convulsions with the 400% increase in silicon costs, or the expected shortage in the supply of solar photovoltaic panels in 2022."This could seriously disrupt the EU's decarbonisation programme.
India and the United States are cited as countries that have "already identified the solar photovoltaic industry as strategic and are investing in domestic manufacturing", adding that Europe has solid foundations to follow suit.
PV Tech of 27 January 2022
Note that the signatories are installers, that there is only one very small manufacturer, Enel, with Photowatt as an accessory, and that the number of signatories is very limited!
Asking the Union to get more PV manufacturers on board is all well and good, but why don't these big groups get involved? We're back to the same old European attitude: we're asking the authorities to launch industrial projects without the interested parties getting involved. It was the same attitude in the battery sector until the industrialists thought they had enough support from the Commission to set up manufacturing units.
The only real initiative came from Meyer Burger, which created a production facility because it could no longer remain an equipment manufacturer. He later admitted that his project had not been supported by the European Commission. As soon as he could, he decided to set up a plant in the United States to get the political and industrial support he couldn't find in Europe.
That's the reality. So what is the purpose of these complaints from installers? To make themselves look good?
