July 26, 2017
Press release - More than 100 Companies & Organizations call for Policy Action for PV Manufacturing in Europe - 26 July 2017
Today’s announcement of Solar World implies that the company could have
found an investor but wil reduce its workforce by approximately 1200
positions. It shows how key policy actions are needed to prevent the PV
manufacturing industry from disappearing in Europe.
Solar photovoltaics (PV) is a key enabling technology of strategic importance
for the EU economy, providing energy independence, industrial jobs, and
economic growth. It is inspiring a generation of young people, engineers, and
scientists and is hugely popular with the general public.
For more than two decades, Europe has been the driving force in
technological development, state-of-the-art manufacturing (industry 4.0),
sustainable production, and high-efficiency solar products. Even with the
emergence of huge overcapacities outside of Europe, the EU value chain
starting from raw materials to equipment to complete PV systems have
successfully remained intact until now.
To maintain at least some significant presence in Europe of every step in the
production of a PV system, including cell manufacturing, researchers and
manufacturers request immediate action from EU policymakers and national
governments. 100 organizations, including manufacturing companies,
equipment manufacturers, research centers and trade associations active in al segments of the PV industrial value chain issued this cal in June. The letter
that they co-signed proposed a series of measures that public bodies can
take, including relaxing state aid rules to adjust the levels of support given to
PV manufacturing in Europe to the levels given to manufacturers in other
regions of the world.
The European PV Technology and Innovation Platform for Photovoltaics (ETIP-
PV), the Global PV Industry & Technology Association (SOLARUNITED) and the
Association of European Renewable Energy Research Centres (EUREC) are
planning the next steps to build on the momentum created by the letter. EU
PROSUN supports this initiative.
Together with the support of a unique R&D ecosystem, we believe in the
ability of the EU PV manufacturing industry to retain its significant
technological lead over companies outside Europe.
main role is to provide consensus-based strategic advice on all issues relevant to
progressing research and innovation (R&I) efforts.
For further information please contact:
Bernhard Krause, ETIP PV Secretariat (info@etip-pv.eu)
www.etip-pv.eu