The European Solar PV Industry Alliance (ESIA) recently announced that Europe can surpass the norm The EU target of an annual PV production capacity of 30 GW with appropriate political support by 2025. The Alliance also found that Europe has the potential to exceed the 30 GW target in polysilicon production, ingot fabrication, cell fabrication and module fabrication respectively.
These predictions come as ESIA has announced a comprehensive plan of action for its working groups. The action plan brings together the expertise of over 120 organizations from 17 countries within the European solar PV value chain to advance work in four key areas: Non-price criteria, supply chain challenges, financial instruments, and training and skills.
The action plan aims to improve the competitiveness of the international supply chain by focusing on factors such as energy costs, sustainability, recycling and traceability. An analysis was performed to bridge the gap between operating and capital costs (OpEx and CapEx) of the European PV value chain and those in other regions of the world. And the results are used to explore possible financial instruments to boost growth.
The plan also proposes non-price criteria to bring best-in-class solar products to market with strong environmental, social and governance qualities. It also addresses various gaps in the value chain, emphasizes recyclability, emphasizes the importance of education and training, increases attractiveness and visibility, and improves mobility to ensure sufficient talent availability.
The ESIA was founded by the European Commission in December last year EIT InnoEnergy as secretariat, together with Solar Power Europe and the European Solar Manufacturing Council in the steering committee of the alliance.
As set out in the Net Zero Industry LawOur goal is to overcome regulatory barriers that hamper the roll-out of net-zero technologies, of which solar PV is an essential ingredient, to ultimately improve the EU’s energy resilience and competitiveness.
– commented Kerstin Jorna, Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.
Since its inception, the Commission and the Alliance have worked closely together to improve the policy framework to continuously drive solar growth.
Recent measures aim to increase investment security by harmonizing approval procedures for large and small PV production plants across the single market. In addition, the Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework has been updated to complement the upcoming Net-Zero Industry Act, which will allow governments to support investment across Net-Zero supply chains.