EIT InnoEnergy made Secretariat of the EU Solar PV Industry Alliance

A new joint statement commits the European Commission and the European PV industry to supporting investment across the solar PV value chain.

What is EIT InnoEnergy's role as Secretariat?

EIT InnoEnergy is the EIT's Knowledge & Innovation Community (KIC) for sustainable energy across Europe. As the Secretariat of the Alliance, EIT InnoEnergy will facilitate business and industrial cooperation across the solar PV value chain, lead the implementation of a new strategic industrial action plan, manage membership, gather and disseminate market intelligence, manage communications, and run the Alliance’s ‘Business and Investment Platform’. This will make Europe more competitive and ready to meet the booming demand for solar PV in Europe and the world. In the short term, the plan is to develop an industry that can supply an annual capacity of 30 GW by 2025, adding EUR 60 billion of new GDP every year to Europe and creating more than 400 000 new jobs (both directly and indirectly). 

SolarPower Europe and the European Solar Manufacturing Council will join EIT InnoEnergy on the Alliance’s steering committee in recognition of their role as key industry stakeholders. Together, the steering committee will oversee the delivery of the Alliance’s work and the European Solar PV Forum, a large, annual public event that will facilitate high-level policy and political discussions. 

Third countries are giving massive support to develop their clean tech industries and attract ours. The EU needs to up its game in terms of investment and regulatory environment for our clean tech manufacturing to thrive, create jobs in Europe, and compete globally. The new European Solar PV Industrial Alliance is a key initiative to decrease dependencies and boost EU manufacturing capacity of solar PV technologies to 30 Gigawatt annually by 2025 across the full value chain.

Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market

The Alliance will follow a seven-pronged strategic action plan to boost PV manufacturing investment across Europe:

• Identify manufacturing scale-up bottlenecks and provide recommendations  
• Facilitate access to finance, including by establishing commercialisation pathways for solar PV manufacturing 
• Provide a framework for cooperation on development and uptake 
• Boost international partnerships and global supply chain resilience 
• Support the solar PV research and innovation base 
• Promote circularity and sustainability measures 
• Up-skill through partnerships and training programmes 

The new statement established the following priorities:

• Scaling up capacity by mobilising public and private finance for European solar PV manufacturing projects, making use of all European financing instruments (notably the Innovation Fund clean technology manufacturing window in the current large-scale call, the REPowerEU chapter in the national recovery and resilience plans, and the EIB contribution to expanding the EU’s clean energy technology manufacturing capacity in the context of REPowerEU)
• Ensuring a sustainable and level playing field, while stimulating demand for competitive, efficient, and sustainable PV products and systems
• Swift implementation of eco-design requirements for PV systems and products and on public procurement actions
• Launching the European Solar PV Industry Alliance Academy to keep up with the evolving skills requirements of the industry

EIT InnoEnergy builds on an impressive track record

EIT InnoEnergy already has a record of success leading the European Battery Alliance (EBA) since its launch in 2017. EIT InnoEnergy's EBA experience inspired its blueprint for industrial value chain development, which brings together the people and resources required for acceleration and scale. 

We are honoured to be appointed to lead the work of the EU Solar PV Industry Alliance. As we have done for batteries through our work on the European Battery Alliance, we will now do for solar PV, leveraging our robust industrial value chain blueprint and network of stakeholders to achieve rapid development of manufacturing projects across the solar PV value chain for the benefit of EU citizens.

Diego Pavia, CEO of EIT InnoEnergy