Announcement of 5-gigawatt factory in France

A solar factory with an annual production capacity of five gigawatts is to be built in Sarreguemines (Saargemünd) in the French department of Moselle. Behind the project is Holosolis SAS, a foundation of EIT InnoEnergy. This division of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT), which is supported by the European Union, coordinates, among other things, the European Solar PV Industry Alliance (ESIA), which was founded last December. Other Holosolis stakeholders currently include French construction project developer Groupe IDEC and TSE, a medium-sized solar project developer with annual revenue of € 27 million ($ 29.3 million).
Participants with production experience in the solar industry are not named at this time. Other details for the project, initially announced Monday (May 15) by French President Emmanuel Macron at the government's »Choose France« summit in Versailles, are also sparse for now. Production is scheduled to begin in 2025, with full capacity targeted for 2027. Holosolis says it plans to produce 10 million modules annually, which would correspond to a targeted module output of 500 watts. The timetable, the stated figure of 1,700 jobs, the site size of 50 hectares and the – unofficially – circulated investment sum of € 700 million ($ 761 million) suggest, however, that it is not just a matter of manufacturing modules.
The Sarreguemines site was already associated with the solar industry in 2020, when the Norwegian REC Solar Holding AS announced a 4-gigawatt module factory here, but later abandoned these plans.
© PHOTON