Enel, which already runs a solar factory on the Italian island of Sicily, said its new US plant with be its second global PV manufacturing facility.
Enel is testing a 24 MWh thermal energy storage system that could be used for seasonal renewables storage. The facility uses rocks that store excess energy as heat, then releases that heat to generate steam for electricity.
Enel Green Power’s new solar panel has average efficiencies ranging from 22.6% to 22.9% and a temperature coefficient of -0.24% per degree Celsius. It is based on an n-type solar cell with G12 format and a power conversion efficiency of 24.6%.
The planned storage capacity will come from 20 projects selected by Italian grid operator Terna through the latest capacity market auction. Half of them will be located on the island of Sardinia.
Called Tracker Sun Hunter, the new factory will be located in an area of over 30,000 square meters inside Enel’s Montalto di Castro power plant which is no longer used for energy generation.
A group of companies comprising Akuo Energy, Amarenco, BayWa re, EDF Renouvelables, Enel Green Power, Engie, Iberdrola and Vattenfall has sent a letter to the European Commission to ask for a strategy to build up a continental PV supply chain.
In a recent media brief, new Enel Green Power CEO Salvatore Bernabei said the company’s heterojunction solar module factory in southern Italy will be scaled up from 200MW to 3GW by mid-2024. He also revealed that another factory may be built abroad, with the United States being a possible location.
An unspecified sum is being provided by the European Union to help Enel become a large-scale PV panel manufacturer. The Italian company secured the funds through the Innovation Fund
The Euro trade body has promised to monitor the developing solar jobs market annually from now on, and pointed to Poland’s position at the top of the tree of EU member states for PV jobs last year as evidence the technology can still benefit from legislative backing.
The latest update to the Photovoltaics Report produced by research organization the Fraunhofer ISE has offered up the usual slew of interesting stats on the state of solar across the continent.
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