Today the European Commission has formally endorsed a new Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance, with the aim of scaling up manufacturing technologies of innovative solar photovoltaic products and components, to reach 30 Gigawatt of annual solar energy manufacturing capacity by 2025 across the full PV value chain. SolarPower Europe welcomes the new Alliance, following a recent letter from 13 Solar CEOs calling on the Commission to support European solar PV manufacturing.
“The new Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance is a crucial initiative to strengthen the strategically critical European solar PV manufacturing sector. Work on the new Alliance comes at a crucial time - in a globally competitive solar manufacturing landscape, diversifying the value chain and boosting European solar PV manufacturing will reinforce the European Commission’s energy security and solar deployment ambitions.”
The new EU Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance is one of the concrete initiatives of the EU Solar Strategy, adopted by the European Commission in May 2022 as part of the REPowerEU plan. The European Commission is building the Alliance on the foundation of the European Solar Initiative, founded in 2020 by SolarPower Europe and EIT InnoEnergy, which aimed at boosting solar PV manufacturing.
Acke continues: “SolarPower Europe is pleased to support the new EU Solar PV Industry Alliance, both through our years of groundwork through the European Solar Initiative, and via our incoming role on the Steering Committee within the Alliance. We look forward to continuing our work through this new Initiative, and re-shoring European solar manufacturing for good."
The EU Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance will bring together industrial actors, research institutes, consumer associations, NGOs and other stakeholders with an interest in the solar PV sector. It will deliver an action plan for the solar industrial value chain in Europe and engage with the EU and Member States on issues ranging from research and innovation, technology, industrial supply chain, raw materials, access to finance, off-takers, international partnerships and global supply chain resilience, circularity, sustainability and skills. The launch of the Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance is expected by the end of the year. SolarPower Europe is currently in the process of formalising its position on the Steering Committee of the EU Solar PV Industry Alliance.
In an online statement, Commissioner Thierry Breton, responsible for the Single Market said: “To meet Europe's renewable energy objectives — and avoid replacing a dependency on Russian fossil fuels with new dependencies — we are launching an industrial alliance for solar energy. With the alliance's support, the EU could reach 30 Gigawatt of annual solar energy manufacturing capacity by 2025 across the full PV value chain. The alliance will foster an innovative and value-creating industry in Europe, which leads to job creation here. Europe's solar industry already created more than 357,000 jobs. We have the potential to double these figures by the end of the decade.”
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Bethany Meban
Senior Press and Communications Advisor, SolarPower Europe
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