Italy to Welcome Enel Green’s Solar Panel Gigafactory

Enel has entered into a financing agreement with a pan-European commercial banking group UniCredit to pave the way for the finance of the expansion of a solar panel factory in Catania, Sicily, Italy.  Investment, worth €560 million (US$600 million), will aid the development of the Italian PV Gigafactory (Tango). This is an industrial-scale manufacturing plant for PV modules at Enel Green Power firm 3Sun, which is the largest Italian photovoltaic factory. Once the factory is expanded, it will see a fifteen-fold increase in capacity to 3 GW annually, which currently stands at 200 MW.

September 2023 is when the first 400 MW is slated for operation. By July 2024, the new factory will be completely operational. The production line will entail bifacial heterojunction (B-HJT) PV cells. The PV panels will also boast of a structure called Tandem, that employs two stacked cells to make room for more light to be captured. As per the firm, when combined, the bifacial panels and Tandem cell increase efficiency ratio to more than 30%.

“The solar module factory will be at the forefront in terms of innovative technology and automation of industrial processes and will contribute to the EU’s goal of achieving 40% energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030, as well as help reduce energy dependence,” said Francesco Starace, CEO and General Manager of Enel.

The gigafactory proposed, that will produce 3 GW of panels, will generate p5.5TWh of renewable electricity annually.

“For UniCredit, sustainable finance is essential to supporting the energy transition, providing concrete solutions to accelerate the journey of our customers and the communities in which we operate toward a more equitable and sustainable future,” said Andrea Orcel, CEO of UniCredit.

Starting as an Italian utility firm, ENEL has expanded strongly to become a worldwide energy developer. Enel North America has announced that it has built 1.98 GW of utility-scale wind, solar and battery storage capacity across the US and Canada in 2022 alone.  Worldwide, Enel built over 5.2 GW of new renewable capacity over the course of 2022.