This content was published on December 10, 2020 – 15:13
(Keystone-ATS)
The Norwegian manufacturer of photovoltaic panels Rec Group plans to set up a giant factory in Hambach (Moselle), creating at least 1,500 jobs from 2022, we learned from management on Thursday.
The project is planned for the reception area of the Smart car factory, sold at the start of the week by the Daimler group to Britain’s Ineos. The project, for which the building permit application has been filed, consists of initially producing 4.5 million panels per year, with an investment of 681 million euros, announced Rec Solar during a press point by videoconference.
This first phase, which would start in 2022, should create 1,500 jobs, then a second to be confirmed would lead, in 2025, to a workforce of 2,500 employees for 9 million annual panels. Enough to produce a power of 4 gigawatt peak (GWp), “the equivalent of a 900 megawatt nuclear reactor”, according to the company.
The “final decision” to initiate the first stage (2 GWp) should be taken “mid-March” by the Rec group, announced Cemil Seber, its managing director.
It will depend on two main criteria: the result of the consultation on the project which starts next Monday under the aegis of the National Commission for Public Debate and the completion of the financing of the investment. On this second point, “we will obviously appeal to (public) aid to which we may be entitled,” said Mr. Seber.
Concurrent de Meyer Burger
The Rec plant is said to be one of the largest of its kind in Europe, along with the one planned by the Bernese Meyer-Burger in Germany, in an area dominated by Asian manufacturers.
According to Mr. Seber, its capacity in 2022 and then in 2025 would each time represent around 10% of the European market, so that “the market is certainly of sufficient size to absorb our production”, he estimated.
A solar energy group with 2,000 employees and $ 500 million in revenue in 2019, Rec operates a first photovoltaic panel plant in Singapore. He wants to set up in Hambach in order to “produce in the heart of the booming European market”, according to Mr. Semer. “From Singapore, it takes four to six weeks of delivery, which is too much,” said the leader.
The plant would be complemented by a research and development center, around the “innovative” manufacturing technology, “the heterojunction”, which Rec Group is developing with the French Atomic Energy Commission, said Mr. Semer.
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