MeyerBurger Snaps Up €200 Million From EU Innovation Fund For 3.5 GW Solar Manufacturing

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Meyer Burger Technology AG, through its group company Meyer Burger (Industries) GmbH, submitted a funding application for EUR 200 million in the EU-wide selection process of the European Innovation Fund in March 2023. The project “HOPE” (High-efficiency Onshore PV module production in Europe) submitted by Meyer Burger has prevailed as eligible for funding, the EU Commission announced today. HOPE involves the construction of an additional 3.5 gigawatts of production capacity for solar cells and solar modules by Meyer Burger in Germany and probably in Spain.

The project is among the eleven selected candidates for EU funding in the funding segment “Clean Tech Manufacturing”. According to the EU Commission, a total of 239 projects applied in all funding segments, of which 41 were successful. In the area of photovoltaic production, the Norwegian company Norsun was also successful with a project to expand wafer production. Norsun and Meyer Burger are already in a supply relationship for solar wafers for Meyer Burger. As the only remaining significant Western solar ingot and wafer manufacturer NorSun will expand its current capacity in Norway by 3 GW after winning the European Commission’s NOK 600 million ($60.6 million) funding. The firm is also working on an ingot plant in the US, subject to support under the Inflation Reduction Act.

“We are very pleased that the EU Commission wants to support our project,” says Gunter Erfurt, CEO of Meyer Burger. “The EU is not only contributing to the decarbonization of the energy system and the transformation of the industry. It is equally investing in the resilience of supply chains in the solar industry.”

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The current EU Innovation Fund tender has a volume of €3.6 billion. The funds come from EU-ETS CO2 allowance trading and thus directly drive decarbonization. The EU-wide selection process took four months.

In a formal process, the EU Commission will issue the formal grant decision after this selection decision, which Meyer Burger expects to receive before the end of this year.

Other firms include Swedish solar company Midsummer which is set to receive a grant of over €32 million for a new 200MW plant to produce CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) thin film solar cells. The lightweight CIGS thin-film solar panels can be installed on low load-bearing rooftops.

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Noway’s VIANODE has also won a fillip to that countries focus on battery supply chain with a grant for its Project ELA, which seeks to develop a full-size industrial production facility addressing the growing supply/demand gap for anode materials and paving the way towards European-produced anode materials. The project will bring a novel graphisation technology to commercial scale. It expects to set a new standard to produce synthetic graphite anode materials, by maturing its clean, energy- and material-efficient graphitisation process to TRL9. The technology further enables the recycling of anode materials, as a first step towards a circular value chain for batteries in Europe. Freyr Battery from Norway also added to the wins on the battery front.

The full list of organisations/projects picked by the EU innovation fund worth Euro 3.6 billion can be viewed here.

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