The Empower Project, coordinated by the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) in Norway, emerges as a response to the need to strengthen solar panel manufacturing in Europe, in a context where competition with markets such as China and the United States has become increasingly challenging.

In a conversation with Strategic Energy Europe, Helge Malmbekk, Head of the Solar Energy Materials and Technology Department at IFE, explains the importance of this program: “This project seeks to consolidate a European value chain for solar energy production, integrating various industry players and reducing manufacturing costs.”

The initiative involves 24 partners from nine European countries and is part of the European Commission’s efforts to secure the continent’s leadership in the photovoltaic sector.

The challenge of competitiveness against China and the United States

The solar market has drastically changed in recent years. The oversupply of photovoltaic panels has led to a rapid price drop, making production viability in Europe increasingly difficult.

“The market is global, and European companies must compete with prices from China, India, and the United States,” says Junjie Zhu, senior researcher at IFE. “When there is an oversupply of solar modules, prices drop even further, forcing costs to be reduced in order to remain competitive.”

Empower aims to respond to this challenge through innovation and cost-reduction strategies. “The goal of this call, in which this project is part, is to drive innovation to offer lower prices, not just new technologies, but competitive prices,” highlights Zhu. “We must try to find some alternative process or equipment. If we only use traditional methods to compete with Chinese producers, it would be very difficult,” he adds.

Rebuilding the value chain in Europe

One of the main problems facing the photovoltaic industry in Europe is the fragmentation of the supply chain. Many European manufacturing companies have disappeared in the last decade, leading to a greater dependency on Asian suppliers.

To compete with markets such as China, scalability in production is key. “If you compare a 100-megawatt factory with a 50-gigawatt factory, there are some cost reductions you can achieve when building these gigafactories. And that is one of the key things we lack in Europe now: simply the scale of industries,” Malmbekk explains.

In this regard, Empower is developing a comprehensive strategy that covers all stages of production. “For the European industry in general, we just need to innovate and lower prices to be able to compete globally,” says Zhu.

“The approach we have taken in this project is not only to focus on one part of the value chain but to start with wafers, then cells, interconnectors, modules, and Industry 4.0 sensors, linking everything together to create a complete value chain. We hope that these can become parallel companies and industries driving innovation in Europe,” Malmbekk adds.

Empower is not only working to improve solar panel production but also to foster cooperation between companies and research institutes to build a strong local industry.

“It is essential that European policies provide investment stability. If companies see a real commitment from the European Union, it will be easier to attract capital for sector expansion,” continues Malmbekk  in a discussion with Strategic Energy Europe.

Key technologies to reduce costs and improve efficiency

The project is based on three technological pillars that will improve the competitiveness of European solar panels:

• New manufacturing techniques: Innovative processes for silicon wafer production are being explored, eliminating the use of ingots and wafer cutting, which will significantly reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions
• Replacing expensive materials: Currently, solar cell production relies on silver, a costly and limited-availability material. Empower proposes replacing it with copper, a more economical and abundant alternative.

 “If we look at the entire value chain, from silicon materials to the module, the investment in the first stage, such as making polysilicon and manufacturing wafers, is a very large investment,” explain experts from IFE.

“In our project, we are trying to use an alternative approach, which is to avoid making polysilicon, avoid making ingots and slicing, and instead produce the wafer directly from silane. That will significantly reduce costs. And this is a major innovation in this project. If we can make this approach competitive with other processes, it will be a great success for Europe as well,” they add.

• Integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in production: The project will implement sensors and machine-learning algorithms to optimize real-time manufacturing, improving quality and reducing waste.
• Digital project passports: These are based on the entire production line and all relevant data, with key targets and measurement points in the production process to track the environmental impact of each stage.

“By applying alternative manufacturing methods, OPEX costs are reduced and, hopefully, CAPEX costs as well. There are clear targets for that. And in the end, that gives you a more profitable manufacturing business,” they emphasize. “These methods are currently being demonstrated in pilot production, but in this project, we will scale them up to a full production environment and demonstrate higher throughput, lower energy consumption, and lower costs.”

“If we continue using the same technologies as Chinese manufacturers, it will be very difficult to compete. We must find new methods that give us an advantage,” Mambekk adds.

The future of the solar sector in Europe

The major challenge for the Empower Project will be to demonstrate that its technologies can significantly reduce production costs and make gigafactories viable in Europe.

“Our hope and goal for the project is to prove that we can have a robust European manufacturing base capable of competing internationally in photovoltaic energy production. And to achieve that, we must have a credible and reliable supply chain in Europe, a competitive industry, and ensure that the continent is self-sufficient in energy production in the event of trade wars or disruptions in global production chains,” emphasizes the Head of the Solar Energy Materials and Technology Department at IFE.

Empower is positioned as a key platform for companies to demonstrate to investors that they can achieve cost reductions. The goal is to showcase this on a large-scale production level and subsequently translate it into the construction of gigawatt-scale factories in Europe.

The EMPOWER project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program under grant agreement No 101172767. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.