The “largest European plant for the production of thin-film solar cells” will go into operation after receiving production certification. Midsummer director Erik Olsson explains pv magazine Italy Production is expected to start after the summer, at a time when demand for thin-film photovoltaics from the commercial and industrial solar segments is increasing sharply.
The Swedish company Midsummer expects to start operations in its Italian factory in Puglia after the summer. When fully operational, the plant is expected to produce 50 MW per year of thin-film photovoltaic cells.
The new factory is supported by Invitalia, Italy’s national agency for foreign investment and economic development.
“We received the Invitalia inspectors at the end of April,” said Erik Olsson, head of business development at Midsummer, in a conversation with pv magazine Italy at Intersolar. “The second contribution will be used to hire people in Bari. We also certify production. We started at the beginning of this year and it usually lasts six months. We will start production after the summer.”
Invitalia has now given Midsummer a second grant of approximately SEK 91 million ($8.6 million), for a total of more than $22 million in funding to start production in what is “Europe’s largest thin-film solar cell manufacturing facility ” will be.
Image: Midsummer
“All production equipment has now been installed on site and the factory is ready to scale up production as sales increase and factory and product certifications are completed,” the company said in a statement.
In addition to the new factory, currently the company’s largest factory, Midsummer has an active factory in Sweden and a second one under construction in the country.
“We have a capacity of 5 MW in Sweden, but an actual production of about 2 MW,” Olsson said last week during Intersolar in Munich. “We produce three different products. With the factory in Bari we can produce modules of 6 meters in length, 50% more than what we can do now in Sweden. This is important because the demand for longer modules is increasing.”
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“We have almost exclusively done residential properties, but the demand for our products increasingly comes from the C&I segment,” Olsson said pv magazine Italy. “That is also the reason why the dimensions of the requested modules change.”
The company says it expects prices below €1 per watt, adding that the final price will depend on the number of orders.
The next Swedish factory will have a capacity four times that of the Bari factory.
“Earlier this year we received the European Innovation Fund grant for our second factory in Sweden,” said Olsson. “We submitted an application in February 2023 and signed the grant agreement in December 2023. This concerns 200 MW, which will be operational in the spring of 2026.”
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