French Manufacturer Selects Site For 5GW Solar Plant

French company Carbon says it has decided to build a €1.5 billion (US$1.6 billion) solar production facility in the French city of Fosse-Maritimes.

French manufacturer Carbon has said that its heterojunction solar module plant in Fosse-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, will be fully operational by 2025. Once completed, the plant will have an annual capacity of 5 GW of solar cells and 3.5 GW of photovoltaic modules.

Carbon said it wanted to build the plant in a location that would be easily accessible by road, rail, inland waterways and sea, so 15 sites across France were considered. The final site chosen was in the heart of an industrial area where incentives are being implemented to encourage the creation of sustainable industrial projects.

Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the French Minister for Energy Transition, said: "France and Europe as a whole must quickly reposition itself in the PV value chain in order to avoid switching from one dependency to another. It is at such a critical moment that Carbon announces this good news."

The plant is scheduled to start production from mid-2014 and is expected to be fully operational by mid-2025. It consists of three production plants that will primarily produce wafer, cell and module products using either cross-finger back contact (IBC) technology or tunnel through oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) technology.

Leading French research institutions CEA-Liten, INES and IPVF will join forces with the International Centre for Solar Energy Research (ISC Konstanz) in Germany to support Carbon in its goal of reaching 30 GW capacity by 2030.

The project will raise €1.5 billion through a combination of equity, public funds and bank loans. The company's shareholders have already committed almost €5 million and are now in the initial funding phase, which is expected to be completed by the end of the first half of this year.