Swedish solar manufacturer Midsummer has selected the municipality of Flen in central Sweden to build a 200MW thin-film solar cell manufacturing facility.
The company will take over the premises in September this year, and expects to begin production in 2026, before scaling up to full production capacity in 2028. The facility will produce copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cells.
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The focus of the facility will be towards light and environmentally sustainable solar panels for the commercial and industrial market and roofs that cannot sustain the weight of traditional silicon solar panels.
This project was among three PV manufacturing projects – along with ones belonging to module manufacturer Meyer Burger and Norwegian solar firm NorSun – to be granted financing through the European Commission’s EU Innovation Fund last year. Midsummer received €32 million (US$34.3 million) for the financing of the CIGS thin-film solar cell facility.
“We had a number of locations in Sweden to choose from, but Flen fulfilled all our requirements regarding [for example] suitable premises, reliable electricity supply and overall an established local infrastructure that is favourable for this type of production,” said Eric Jaremalm, CEO at Midsummer.
Jaremalm was appointed CEO of the company earlier this year in a push to accelerate its goal to bring online 250MW of annual nameplate cell manufacturing capacity, with a second plant in Italy.
“Flen is also geographically well located for the transport of input materials and finished products across Sweden and all of Europe,” added Jaremalm.