From pv magazine France
French panel maker Carbon said it will build a new R&D center in Istres, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France. The location is not far from its planned module factory in Fos-sur-Mer.
From 2027, the laboratory will include technical platforms and operational equipment to enable the scale-up of production. The site will also host a “solar campus,” as well as a documentation and training center.
The property includes several vacant industrial buildings, which will be renovated. The project, with at least €33 million ($35.4 million) of investment in several phases, benefits from French government support through the France 2030 program. Carbon said it will create 200 jobs in the metropolitan area, in addition to the 3,000 at the gigafactory in Fos-sur-Mer.
Carbon said plans to devote 3% of its turnover to R&D. The objective is to position itself initially in the marketing of tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) cells and modules, while also developing TOPCon back-contact (TBC) cell technology, as well as disruptive technologies such as perovskites.
In May, Carbon revealed plans to start pilot production at its vertically integrated TOPCon and IBC solar module factory in Fos-sur-Mer in fall 2025. The factory will use a 500 MW pilot production line for TOPCon panels. The company said it will initially produce the modules with cells sourced in Europe or from other continents.
Popular content
The company said that the factory will have 5 GW of annual ingot and cell production capacity and 3.5 GW of module capacity.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.