The Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition (MITECO) has awarded more than €210 million (US$227.21 million) in funding to seven solar PV manufacturing projects.
The provisional results for the RENOVAL programme were released last week by The Institute for Diversification and Energy Saving (IDAE in Spanish) which is in charge of the programme.
The funds will be provided through Spain’s recovery and resilience plan (PRTR) under NextGenEU, which aims to incentivise the production of equipment and components for solar panels, batteries and electrolysers, among other technologies.
In total, nearly €300 million has been allocated to 34 projects for renewables manufacturing. One of the seven solar PV manufacturing projects received two-thirds of all the funding.
Solar ingot and wafer manufacturer startup Sunwafe has been allocated nearly €200 million for the construction of a PV manufacturing plant in the northern region of Asturias. According to the company’s website, it aims to build a wafer manufacturing plant with a 20GW annual nameplate capacity by 2030. However, projects that have been awarded in the RENOVAL programme are expected to be completed in four years.
PV Tech reached out to Sunwafe for comments regarding its awarded manufacturing project.
Other upstream PV manufacturing projects awarded capacity include Dutch solar cell manufacturer MCPV and Spanish module manufacturer European Solar Cell Company (Escelco).
In the case of the Dutch company, a subsidiary of Dutch solar research and innovation platform SolarNL, it has been awarded with nearly €10 million for the construction of a module assembly plant in Navarra, northern Spain.
The company did not mention how much annual nameplate capacity the Spanish plant will have and if the solar cells are expected to be provided by the 4GW heterojunction solar cell plant it is building in northern Netherlands. In October 2024, this project secured €4.2 million for its construction, with commercial production expected to begin as early as 2026.
“The MCPV team looks forward to next steps in Navarra as we continue our efforts to establish competitive, Made-in-Europe, GW-scale PV manufacturing in Europe,” wrote the company in a LinkedIn statement.
Moreover, Escelco’s case is different from the other two as its application is for expanding its operational capacity. Located in León, the project will receive a €1.3 million funding to expand its existing capacity, however no details have been disclosed concerning which part of the supply chain – solar cells and/or modules – will be affected by this expansion.
