The European Commission (EC) on Tuesday formally endorsed a new Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance, with the aim of scaling up manufacturing technologies of innovative solar PV products and components.
The call for membership in the Alliance is scheduled to be published in November. The launch of the Alliance is expected by the end of the year.
Once set up, the 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 EC will work with EITInnoEnergy to establish it, building on the successful track record of the Batteries Alliance, which has played an important role in ensuring that the continent can meet up to 90% of its demand with batteries made in Europe by 2030.
“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,” said Thierry Breton, European Commissioner responsible for the Single Market.
Dries Acke, Policy Director of SolarPower Europe, calls the new Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance “a crucial initiative to strengthen the strategically critical European solar PV manufacturing sector”.
The Alliance is aimed to accelerate the deployment of solar power across the EU and improve the resilience of the EU’s energy system. It is one of the initiatives included in the EU Solar Energy Strategy adopted in May 2022.
